Memoires of Adrianna :o)

So I HAVE to be the proud mamma and brag a little here! My princess is just walking around 24/7 WRITING by herself! :o) She has been writing for some time, but now she is starting to walk around the house with her notebook copying things she sees! SO SO SO CUTE!!!!


THIS SHE SAW ON A PAPER ON THE FRIDGE . . .
THIS SHE SAW ON A GREETING CARD...
THIS SHE CAME UP WITH ON HER OWN!
(said it spelled Louis?? Someone on television, beats me!)

THIS IS HOW SHE PHONETICALLY SPELLS HUTTO TEXAS! LOL
(HTO TOES) I don't know.... :o) I went ahead and showed her the right way but was proud of her trying on her own!


And the list or shall I say pages go on and on. She has been sitting copying the newspaper for the past 45 minutes while I clipped coupons! I found some "Bob Books" from a seller on Craig's list that I'm hoping to pick up tomorrow and got them for a steal!!! Usually each set runs about $15 or so and is great to get your preschooler reading short sentences. She SO wants to learn so I figured, why not? It can't hurt.

OUCH!!!!

OUCH!!!!

Okay so TODAY was NOT the day for me to pull my back out!!!!! We spent the day yesterday pulling TONS OF CHRISTMAS decorations down from the attic and I was the one crunched up passing sterilites to Chris to bring down the ladder. Sure my back was sore last night when we were over his brothers watching the Giants/Cowboys game and it was still sore this morning when I woke up at 5:00! I ran out the door with the kids by 8:00 to get some printing items, decorations for Gift Donation Receptacles and the decor for the 15 $ donation jars to be delivered TODAY for the ORANGE SANTA KICKOFF that our church is sponsoring for the city! (Many more details to come, I'm SO excited about this!)

Welllllllll while pulling Christopher out of the car at Dollar General, I just about dropped him and instantly started to cry. And out of no where here pulls up Ruth on her way to the hair salon and she pulled in to see if I needed help! She was at the right place at the right time for me, that's for sure! I got everyone into the car and drove a couple blocks to Erika and Kyles going about 5 miles an hour not able to barely turn the wheel and Erika unloaded me and the kids onto her couch until Ruth left the salon to get us. This was just way too ridiculous and inconvenient for ME!! I had a TON to do!!!! Thankfully Erika put together all the jars, took over making dinner for a friend that is sick and I planned to double up on my dinner tonight for AND Ruth came over, picked us up and brought us home, putting Christopher down for a nap for me.

I got in touch with Chris who at the moment was running some errands and on his way back to the office to spend the next 5 hours doing Monday paperwork, but instead turned around and headed home for me with those AMAZING back patches, a bottle of advil and a gallon of milk for the kids! He made Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers and kept telling me he doesn't know how I do it by myself. (that put the biggest smile on my face, that's for sure!)

So, in spite of the agony I've been feeling, it was great to see everyone pull together to help me today! I can finally sit up for a short time and even walk around before having to slide back on the couch. "Gina" not able to run around like a nut getting things done . . . you KNOW that stresses me out beyond measure! LOL

Riverbend Church

Okay so I know I've written alot this week, but that's only because my mother in law has been here so this may be the last blog for a few days! :o) Christopher has been up once again since 5:30 (4days in a row now so I'm thinking this might be his new rising time,LOL) so by 7:00 I was wide awake when Chris woke up. We watched a service on TV from Riverbend Church and I was SO LOVING IT!!!!

It was about "contentment". Being content in a Type A World! You know a type A person, the perfectionist, the leader, the competitor, and so on. That type of personality sets the bar for the rest of us and isn't a bad thing at all. The pastor went on giving all these crazy examples of if we lived in a world where everything was only 99.5% perfect what the results would be and he gave examples such as, every day 12 babies would be given to the wrong parents, 5 million or so cases of soda would be made without carbonation, 2 million books would be shipped with wrong covers and so on. I think you get the point.

So while that's all good, you NEED to be content with where you are. It seems like we are always trying to be older (when we are young of course and vise versa), trying to be richer, trying to have more assets and so on. So why can't we just be content with where we are? Well there are three major things that prevent us from doing so..

The enemy of Contentment:
*impatience
*immaturity
*complicating your life

He said something else that will just stick with me probably forever!
"Don't dig up your own seeds", basically just have patience, live in the MOMENT and just know it will all work out! He gave an example of being a young boy on his parents' farm and every spring when he'd see the fresh soil tilled and seeded he didn't question if the crop would grow, but waited for it to sprout up! Patience.

This spoke to me so much this morning so I just wanted to share it with all of you.

cute!

This was from Adrianna's 4th Birthday last February and we were just watching it AGAIN, so I wanted to share...

1 Samuel 24:12

Okay, so all of my friends and family KNOW that I am NOT knowledgeable at ALL on the Bible, religion, prayer, etc. BUT I do want to know more. I want to learn about the stories, find the meaning and be uplifted just as I would from any other book I would choose to read. One of my main reasons for reading the Bible is so I can teach my children. I think it's wonderful to grow up with that sense of security like Chris did.

Anyway, I've been part of 3 different Bible Studies, the first was definitely my FAVORITE! We covered the book of Mark and I'm thinking about going back into the New Testament very soon. My friend Erika and I have been meeting biweekly for what is called an LTG (life transformation group) if you want the "title" , I call it . . . ME TIME, time to enjoy some healthy reading and sharing the weeks insights and or struggles. We've read Ruth, Esther, Some Psalms (138-150), just finished 1Samuel and are in the midst of 2Samuel now.(I'm only up to Chapter 9 Erika!). Well, my sister in law Ruth has asked to join our Bi-Weekly Team as well as my friend Catherine too which I think is pretty cool! What mom doesn't want a night every other week to just sit and have coffee and REAL conversation, uninterrupted by our little ones?! I've never experienced anything like this and am in NO WAY what friends back home would call a "Bible Thumper". I don't mean to offend ANYONE by that phrase, I just want to ensure my family and friends that what I'm doing is enriching my life beyond measure not joining some sort of crazy group or anything.

My friends now are REAL, with real problems, real struggles, real joy and real support. They are just like any other friends I would have, just with strong community focus and what I call real "humanitarians". It's amazing that I found them! I am not going to be one to quote scripture or anything like that because that's not where I'm at right now in my life. I'm more aware of people and their feelings, I want to do more than just focus on my life and my family, I want to reach out even more than I have in the past to others and help, and THAT I just can't help to not see is from my growing relationship with God! We are made to have these beautiful hearts and a conscience, now what we do with those or let be done with them is all up to us...

So today while I was reading for my LTG I couldn't' help but to go back to 1Samuel to something I highlighted (yes, I write and highlight in my Bible that doesn't' even look like a Bible, it's called The Book and it's WAY easier than the King James version for sure!) And I sat and thought about it for a minute and wanted to share...
"Perhaps the Lord will punish you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you." 1Samuel 24:12
"You are a better man than I am, for you have repaid me good for evil." 1Samuel 24:18

I've lived most of my life thinking "well screw you, you hurt me and so I'll do the same back to you!" But I am realizing more and more and find comfort when reading something like this and trusting it that dwelling on the negative or trying to punish someone else will NEVER do you any good and really won't even make an impact on them either. "Kill them with Kindness" my mom always said and it's soooooo true!!!

Ireland

Last night I was thinking about some great places to visit if the opportunity ever came and I couldn't help but to think of Ireland. I have a friend who is actually FROM Ireland and you just have to hear her accent, it's "lovely" as she would say. :o) I don't know what it is about accents, but I just LOVE them! Especially Italian ones, LOL
(above is a picture of Northern Ireland. I googled images just to see the lush beauty and WOW, the little red flowers are called Fuchsia and are my FAVORITE! Also very popular flower/bush in Italy (my mother-in-law's fave flower)

I lived in Massachusetts from the age of 14 to 21 and loved it there! Of course it was full of the Irish and there was an older Irish woman who was like a mom to me. Her name was Grace and I loved everything about her! She had a heart of gold, a mouth of a truck driver, and a smile that would stop traffic. She had the most amazing blue eyes that were so warm that you couldn't help but to love her. AND she was a touchy feely type person which is what I grew up around, always hugging and kissing people so I felt at home with her from day 1. It's so funny how in this country you can see so much the diversity of people and culture . . . some curse, others are appalled by it;some meet you and hug you immediately,others are SUPER uncomfortable with touch and their personal space; some would NEVER speak a word of disrespect towards their elders, where some could care less about the elderly in general; Values vary from one house to the next . . . Now don't get me wrong, diversity can be good. It's just when you move out of a community, culture, environment where what "YOU" do and say and behave is the "norm" , it's hard to feel like you belong anymore.

So what do you do then? I ask myself this all the time. We now live in Texas where well, people aren't like what we're used to. We've met some pretty incredible friends, no doubt, but they are all very different. Some people may take offense to the way I speak, the way I behave, or the things I do. But I am fortunate to have been given some amazing friends that share the same values in their heart even though some behavior or culture may be different. I had a long conversation with a close friend about the difference in life here in Texas , life in Florida, life in the Northeast and yes, the New England area will ALWAYS be my favorite , but living here in Texas is where I've GROWN the most. I've experienced some amazing relationships, some good some bad, but I wouldn't change either! Being OUT OF your COMFORT zone is how you GROW! And MAN it's not easy....it's stressful at times, but wow how fulfilling it can be.

Okay so I got off track about my vacation dreams. I was talking to my friend Sabrina (Irish Gal) and she told me stories about her favorite places to visit and her number one?? ITALY! It's so easy to travel to Italy when you live in Ireland and wow, now I have a place to stay when we are privileged enough to go over seas for a vacation one day and I will actually be able to go to the two places I've always wanted to visit!! AND NOW I'LL HAVE FRIENDS THERE TOO... (Sabrina, we need to go together FOR SURE!) :o)

Well, enough of my daydreaming . . . I'm off to get ready to start my day!
Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!!

54 Days till Christmas!

That's IT!!! Halloween is over (well almost) and it's officially time for the countdown!!!! 54 Days until Christmas!!! Now is when I start playing the Christmas Music, watching Christmas Vacation along with all my favorites from Charlie Brown to Frosty to A Christmas Story...it's SUCH an exciting time for me and for our family! We will officially start bringing Christmas stuff down from the attic next weekend to start testing lights and gather a list of "Christmas Stock".

I've compiled a slideshow of pictures from our fall fun days so far. Everything that the Fall should be . . . playdates at parks with friends & family, Pumpkin Patch trips, Fall Festivals, Halloween, cookies,sweets and lots of FOOD! I just can't wait to wake up and get the ball rolling and to share it all with you!!!!!

Enjoy the show...