A Thorn Among Roses

it's official...the tooth fairy is going broke brooke lost another tooth, making it 3 now. does a kid get any stinking cuter than with her front teeth missing? on a side note, if you are an adult and have front teeth missing, it's totally NOT cute. get it fixed. please.

in brooke's {little miss literal's} defense, i did tell her to sit down with her pencil and practice her name and letters. i kinda meant on paper and not on the kitchen counter, but hey, she did it, right? the part that got me...when brooke said, "i didn't write on the counter" and it's her name! and instead of erasing it, she just put x's through it so i wouldn't notice. crazy kid. it's a really good thing she's cute!

sofia has refused the high chair and has moved up to the "big chair"... i think she's a little excited...what do you think? now if the big chairs only had seat belts to keep in there for the whole meal...in fact, the more i think about it, i could use seat belts on all the chairs at the table. we could make it through the meal without potty breaks and "excuses" a whole lot easier. off to find a few seat belts....

my hubs is a major shop-a-holic...the man loves to peruse the stores and find super authentic things...and this is sometimes an incredible thing and sometimes a not so great thing. it's usually not a great thing after a budget discussion about seriously reducing spending for the first two months of the year to rebuild "reserves" so when i get home and see this for me...i know it's not good. this is what i call a peace offering...it's sweet, so don't get me wrong. i love it...and i know he thought about me...but now, i'm on the prowl. lurking around the house for "things". uh oh...i spotted something. this... and inside...this. opened. and in case you were wondering, it was not on his "frivolous spending" category because he could not be expected to wear the same cologne every day. what in the world was i thinking? oh, and i did get a chocolate of the month club from it all. to quote eddy {from christmas vacation...possibly the funni...

a few things me and the fam DID NOT do this week: sofia DID NOT tell me "poop"...i DID NOT say, "you have to poop?" when i got caught up in dinner making, she DID NOT treat me to a little poopy painting and poop colored hands by saying "poop, mommy. poop." when will i ever learn? 4 kids...seriously. i DID NOT take sofia and jada with me to the 100 day celebration...sofia DID NOT spen dthe entire time maneuvering from table to table stealing fruit loop bowls and eating them. she was NOT jacked up all morning. brooke DID NOT says "if the kids that need adopted are my size, i'm gonna s hare my clothes." jada DID NOT chime in, "me too mom." and then sofia, "too too, mommy". i DID NOT melt and think my girlies are soooo sweet. i DO NOT have paige's sweatpants on...and they DO NOT fit me normal! i am NOT so stinking proud of myself! jada DID NOT call hubs upstairs saying "daddy, my heart is really beeping. it'...

she's just too cute... ok, and i got some new actions in ps and WOW! i'm totally having a blast... i have had 3 inquiries about shooting weddings in the last 2 weeks...and i'm terrified to say yes but i want to...how do you know you are ready? i have years of senior portrait experience....love outdoor shots and i'm a real on the go photographer. but, i mean, well, i just don't know...advice? Hosted by Cecily and Michelle

so the dog drives me a little crazy with her constant thinking...but sometimes she's not that stupid.

our hs winter retreat was this weekend up at lake ann, michigan and was it a great time! theme: pause. hmmmm...sound familiar? so pausing with high school students looks a little different than you might expect... but it's still pausing. and what i know for sure, is that god works even in the different!! tubing...on a hill that is almost pure ice and really fast. pausing. spending time without your own parents but with your adult leaders who rock your face off {embellished a little}...pause! visiting the emergency room for a head and neck injury from tubing on the icy hill with your numero uno adult leader....pause! and just when you think the weekend is over and you are totally on your way home with two tour buses full of almost 100 kids...god says, "no seriously! i totally meant pause!" and when we don't listen, we see a lot of this...anti freeze...from the bus. ooops! when we saw our totally faithful driver, dave, making a phone call from the side of the highw...

{image courtesy of fireside international ...on the ground and mobilizing in haiti} constant updates on the kids coming from haiti...we are in que for one of the families. pray for god's guidance and provision for these children. the children will not be released yet today... http://safefamilieshaiti.blogspot.com/

don't have a lot of time this morn...it's been a crazy weekend. god has spoken to us...refreshed us. and he continues to challenge us. for now, all i know is that we are on a list to take 2 haitian orphans into our home some time this week, maybe even today. please pray for god's provision and for the lives and well being of these children... “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

so about pausing...remember? if you don't, you should def go and read THIS. i totally love how god speaks in and through the normalcy of every day life, when we take time to pause and see it. let me tell you, i love my family, my blackberry, my laptop, my blog, my friends, my hooptie. i love all kinds of stuff...and they get a lot of time and attention because, honestly, they are in front of me and i pay them attention. {a good ring tone can really go a long way, too} god talked to moses in another passage of scripture...it's the infam ous burning bush passage. i love how even though moses was leading the life of husband, sheep herder, son-in-law, etc, that he was still stuck in the mundaneness of it all and had not found time to hear from god. remember, the words in exodus 3... "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mount ain of God. There the angel of...

paige and i are off... to the annual high school winter retreat and ski weekend! pray for travel provisions and for hearts to be healed and minds to be opened in all the students this weekend. ok, add another little ditty in there for those skiing...you know there will be at least one ER visit. there always is. the theme this weekend...pause! remember my post earlier this week? well, here we go...it's pause time! gonna go and find me a hill to just go up...and then just BE.

my little sofia is 2 today...which is great news bc she had a very rough start in this scary, old world. tiny and a sickly, she fought hard...and won. praise god. after almost 10 years of marriage and being told like 8 yea rs prior we were infertile, we were gifted with one of the best "surprise gifts" of all time. there were no balloons, but EVERYONE was in awe of this gift...even the doctor who said, "you really are pregnant". "i can't be pregnant, i'm infertile and i'm almost 40." well, sofia broke all the rules...i have NO idea where sh e got that, btw...and she fought the entire pregnancy and made it to a point where she could come and see everyone in person...it was too early, she was too small bc she was IUGR {intrauterine growth restricted} and my diabetes and toxemia and high bp were all not good for that sweet, tiny thing. {her body was the size of our ipod and her head, the size of a baseball} she lived in that little "campe...

i think we might be weird...in the winter we tend to go through good fresh fruit withdrawal. we eat us some fruit every week...like $40 worth. it's crazy expensive to eat good fresh organic fruit in the midwest during the winter... but... the girlies got a huge surprise via costco's monster ehaus fam size fruit! wooo hooo! we stopped and got a quick bite to hold us over...on the way home, brooke asked, can we have some strawberries and blueberries when we get home?! when i said yes...a huge screamy shrill of excitement came from the back of the hooptie. i think their faces tell the story... who knew fruit was what i needed to get real and fresh smiles? forget lollipops, i'm buying blueberries for photo sessions!

paige is in photography now...and that means i don't take all the pictures around here. she needed some snow and winter pictures...and this is one of my favs. who knew it was legal to swing in a foot of snow!!!

i have been teaching in the ms the last few weeks on taking time to pause... {i also love barns and photography and i love that little icon i made up there...super fun} it's post-christmas and with the last number of weeks, i could really enjoy some pause time. i feel like i lost myself somewhere in early december and i past me up again just after the new year. i could use some "pause time." i mean, i pause...i pray, i think, i read, i even nap every now and again. but there's this thing about pausing that i have discovered. you have to totally BE in the pause before it works. go with me on this one...have you ever been present but not really been there? you know, you are hearing the words that are being said but you are not listening. sometimes we leave our emotions and our spiritual self far away from the physical self...and sadly, i do that when i'm stressed. god wants way more than that...that's why he told moses, "come up to the mountain and sta...

a few things me and the fam DID NOT do this week... i DID NOT get a "tired of this mess" kick and do a purge of toys and everything else in the house one afternoon. my hot flashes DID NOT kick in and i was NOT sorting toys in the basement during naptime in my tank top and shorts...and it was NOT -4 degrees outside. i do NOT hate getting older....grrr. i DID NOT make custom snuggies for all of my kiddos and they were NOT so excited that they were giggling. we do NOT have a house full of snuggie bunnies and dust bunnies...oh come, on. you knew i had to! i DID NOT pull my butt muscle {glut and ham, actually} stepp ing in my trainers house from the snow, sliding off the threshold and pulling something major big. i am NOT still nursing a stinking pulled butt and i am NOT feeling old an stupid for doing it in the first place. i DID NOT fall all the way down the basement steps bc miss jk decided to toss a blanket on the steps and i found it...right on my back. the steps were N...