Swim Lessons!

We've done nothing since New Years. Just been waitin' around for these swim lessons! :) Olivia had her first swim lesson last weekend. She LOVED it! Here she is with Ms. Katie.



Since we liked Ms. Katie so much, I decided to sign Annika up too! Here she is waiting for Olivia's lesson to be over and for her's to start.




She loved it too! She smiled the entire time!

I can't think of a title

Many exciting things have happened since my last post, but I have no time to write about them. I will just post some pics from Christmas time.Here we are after the Christmas Eve candlelight service. I am super happy to report we did not catch Annika's hair on fire this year.





Travis and I on New Year's Eve. This is the kind of joy that can only be brought by almost ten years of marriage (and a couple of glasses of champagne.) This year's party at my mom's was the best. The whole holiday season flew by too quickly for my liking! With the move, everything just snuck right up on us!




Olivia lost her first tooth. She was so excited! She had made a box for it at my mom's. She wanted to be sure the tooth fairy looked there! : ) Seriously, you can't imagine her joy and how proud she was. To be honest, it made me sad. The girls are growing up way too fast.

The other night while sitting at the computer I was thinking of all we've done since last summer. We've been through a lot.
Here is a portion of what I thought of-
*Travis moved to Ft. Worth by himself (starting a new job, living in a microapartment)- leaving the girls and I in OH (it was terrible really. Terrible doesn't describe it. I saw a picture of the girls and I during that time the other day and I felt sick)
*Packing up, cleaning up, and getting the girls and I out of our house by myself (I still think back and know God had to be there secretly feeding me energy bars) and to AR
*Moving away from friends that we had worked extremly hard to make in OH
*Getting our new house broken into less than a week after we moved in
*Finding all new dance, gymnastics, stores, and a place to get our car repaired
*Having all the normal stressors of moving in- extra expenses, exhaustion, the whole figuring out how to live together again thing, etc
*Packing up and traveling for three weeks during Christmas- I know we always do it, but it is crazy and tiring and a huge blessing all at the same time
*Getting back to TX after Christmas to us all being really sick- two weeks of sickness is not my idea of a good time
*Trying to get back to homeschooling Olivia so she doesn't miss kindergarten totally :)
*My dad having a major heart attack a couple of weeks ago
*Living with fire ants in our house- I grow more angry at them daily. I do not like having to keep the vacuum plugged up so I can vacuum everytime I take a shower-although, hopefully we are going to see the end of them soon- "They'll be gone in three weeks ma'am. If not, give me a call." And it's been three weeks now. Guess who is getting a call tomorrow?

And the list goes on, but while thinking about all of this- I see God smoothed over all of those things. Seriously- reading those things makes me feel overwhelmed, but I did not feel that way in the middle of them at all (well, maybe in the whole moving us out of our house in OH). Making them each doable and not overly stressful. I am grateful for how he has used the past few years to change us, make our marriage better, and to make us more like him- and open my eyes to still how crazy far we have to go. We are so blessed. Amazingly blessed. We just got to visit the apartment complex of some refugees last weekend (more to come on that!) and it was amazing to see how little they have and how much we have to be thankful for. I am pretty sure living in the desert for years and then traveling to a new continent is a little more difficult than anything I have or will ever face. They'd probably happily shake fire ants off of their towels and vacuum them up- if they had a vacuum. I am so grateful for God's abundant provision and regardless of the situation we are in- I am thankful that I know it won't last forever!

New Dance and It's almost Christmas!

Annika started taking ballet/tap/gymnastics at the Little Gym. She LOVES it! I haven't ever seen her smile so big! She was laughing and having the best time! This teacher is so great, but she is leaving in January, so we won't have her when we start. :(



Olivia is taking gym. at the Little Gym, but ballet at a more serious ballet place. She loves it. It is kind of strict, but she really enjoyed her time there and wants to be a real ballerina. They all certainly looked like real ballerinas!



We did Christmas early b/c of travel and Trav's work schedule. Here they are after setting out milk and cookies!



And here we all are. :)

Little Rock fun Part 2

Travis really should just sit at the kid's table! :) We had Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's really nice barn house. We had a great time as usual. The turkey was incredible and so was the blackberry apple pie my mom made.



Olivia wants to be a ballerina, so she was very happy to get to see and get her picture taken with two ballerinas (I don't know what you call them men ones-sorry). They performed part of the Nutcracker.



The girls were so excited and so thankful to get snow. I know God sent that for Olivia. He's good like that!



A picture of our door. Isn't it lovely? Now it is repaired. It took a week to get the new door in. We are good- except for caulking and painting. We've added other security measures to the doors too. My next step is to buy the pit bull I saw for sell at the mall pet shop.

Fun in Little Rock

This year was Annika's turn to put the star on mom's tree. She was so excited! Olivia got to help straighten it later on!



Olivia loves puzzles and has since she was small. This is a 500 piece puzzle she and my mom did together. Olivia did a good part of it by herself. She loved it!




This is the plush Santa and Mrs. Claus that we got to see in LR. We went b/c we had gotten to walk around on this Belgian horse farm and the owner told us they'd be bringing in Santa. It was a fun night. We got to see fireworks, part of the Nutcracker, hear Christmas music, eat cotton candy, ride a train (on wheels), and ride in the same carriage as Santa. I wish we'd known about them (the horse people, not Santa) when we got married. How fun would it be to ride off in that?



The girls wrote a letter to Santa and got to put it in his mailbox! We didn't wait in line to see them, but we did go stand on the other side and get a picture of the girls with Santa in the background. :)

Moving Day

Here are the girls in the second moving truck. The first one was completely packed. We had the best movers ever and I would use them again if we could. (and needed to- I hope to not move for a while!)



This was the hard part- I had to seriously run through every room cleaning behind the packers and movers. I had to get everything cleaned and painted before they left so they could take all my cleaning stuff with them. I was completely worn out from doing it all by myself. My sweet friend Jenny helped with the girls. I was so thankful that she kept them during the day a lot and let us stay at their house for two nights. Other than that it was all me. Well, who am I kidding. God completely gave me strength for what I had to do. He may not have given me a helper, but he helped me. Who else do you need besides God helping you?
After all that, the girls and I hopped in the car and headed out for our trip to Nashville to stay with my step-sister and her family. And then onto Little Rock the next day. I was so worn out. Seriously that was the hardest thing I have ever done. But it was helpful b/c I was too tired to be sad. I loved our house, but thankfully I haven't really missed it. The girls haven't either. In fact they tell me on a regular basis how much they love our new house. Again, all God.




That is the living room at our new house. It actually looks a lot more put together right now and Christmassyier. :) Like that word? And of course, we have a little old tv in that one's place.



That is the dining room. Thankfully all of that is put away now. I need to go through and get some pics soon. Ones that look more organized! But it is always good to see the before. So it basically looked like that all through our house.

I mentioned that Annika was starting dance at the Little Gym. This is the first fun thing she's gotten to do. You cannot imagine a smile as big as I saw on her face. It was so fun to see joy in her eyes! And Olivia started ballet and a ballet center. She loved it. It seemed a little strict to me, but they look like amazing dancers. She wants to look like a real dancer, learn real ballet, and be a dancer, so it seems good for her. She has such a sweet, little sensitive heart that I was worried. But she can't wait to go back!

We are doing Christmas early. I will post pics after we do it. The girls are so excited! Olivia asked me if I thought Santa would like cupcakes. :) I think Olivia would like cupcakes!

This has been a crazy week of trying to stay focused on what really matters. Like it is more important to spend time with the girls or ask them to stay out of my way while I get the house organized. Have a done a good job? No. But I have thought a lot about it. A precious little girl from North West AR went to be with Jesus this morning. She had leukemia. Breaks my heart. It seems like everywhere I turn someone has cancer. Or someone is living longer than their children. I do not want to live in fear, but I do want to realize God has our days numbered. And our kids are not ours. They have been given to us to watch over, but they belong to God. Thankfully suffering doesn't continue forever. Thankfully Jesus will be back for us and we get to live with him forever- free of pain, cancer, tears, and deep hurt from living without your children. And thankfully God's gift is a free one. I have to do nothing but accept it. His love is amazing.