Month 9!

So it has been 9 months since we have lived here! Holy cow! We have been super busy this past month with church stuff, kid stuff, house stuff, Spring Break, animal stuff, and just hanging out when we finally get the chance!

So we have been here for 9 months and in 2 wards during that time! They recently rezoned our area and we are now in a different ward then when we moved here. We made so many wonderful friends and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to meet some incredible people that I will be friends with for a long time! Now we are in a different ward and we have the opportunity to meet even more people! I was recently called into cub scouts as a leader. Looking forward to working with the boys and getting crafty!

Spring Break came and went by far to quickly. My parents came out to visit and we had a blast playing Texas tourists! We got the chance to take the train in Grapevine down to Fort Worth and eat lunch and take pictures of the boys riding long horn cattle! Joel brought his Flat Stanley with us wherever we went and I think everyone had fun taking pictures of him! We ate at some yummy restaurants with my parents. My dad and I took the boys fishing one day and both of them had the chance to catch a fish! Happy moments galore right there! My parents even got to be here for a mighty thunderstorm and got to see lightening and thunder up close. After the storm, there was a TRIPLE rainbow in our backyard...it was fantastic! But the time with them went by too quickly and they had to head back to California.

I have been enjoying a book club that I recently joined. It is so nice to hang out with friends at night time and talk about all kinds of books! I have some friends that have lent me some books and I am finding the joy reading again. It has been a long time since I read as much as I have been, but I am really enjoying going to other worlds, visiting other people's lives, and doing it all in my jetted tub!

With each month that passes, we meet more and more friends. We met new friends at Joel's open house at school, I have been going and eating lunch with a friend from church. Each Tuesday we go to Taco Tuesday with our neighbors and friends and meet more people there. We have a new ward and have met some wonderful people already. We have truly made this place our home and I am so happy with how abundantly blessed we have been.

Some of the greatest happy moments from the past month are small, but fun. I love watching Connor run to hug Joel when we gets out of school each day. Joel and Connor race back to me every time....it never gets old! I love when Connor has a bad dream, I find him sleeping in Joel's bed, cuddled up next to him and snuggling Joel like a teddy bear. I have loved going to the movies with my boys and listening to them laugh! I love taking my sweet puppy dog on walks and watch her sniff everything and find joy in chasing the birds through our pond. I LOVE when, for the brief minute of my life, the laundry is done for the week! I love that there have been many days of sunshine this month! Spring is arriving and we have planted a flower garden this year. I can't wait to see the flowers bloom! I love that my grass is coming back to life and turning greener every day! I love family dinners with my husband and kiddos and getting to talk about our favorite parts of our day.

Life is busy right now, but that is how it is supposed to be when a person has young children. I am so thankful I get to be as involved as I am in Joel's school and get to participate in their lives. I am so blessed dear readers! Hoping all of you are finding the joy in the busy times. They can be stressful, but they are also worth it! Until month 10! Have a joyful month!

Month 8

Hey all!

 So writing a bit early but who knows, maybe I will have so many happy moments I want to share that I do a few February blog posts!  This month is starting off so well and I feel so blessed each day!

This week has been an amazing week filled with fun and friends and I feel like it would be a shame to not blog some of these amazing happy moments!  I went to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants with some great ladies from church on Thursday.  It is always nice to sit and chat and get to know people better.  The best thing that happened on Thursday, however, is that it finally snowed here!  Not only did it snow, but it snowed SNOW flakes!  And I don't mean the occasional snow flake, I mean thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, if not more!  It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life and I got some amazing photos of them all!
So I took some pictures and videos of the snowflakes falling down.  Every single drop of snow was in the form of a snowflake or in a snow cluster of snowflakes!  It was simply one of the most stunning things I have ever seen before in my life!  I tried to stay out for as long as I could to enjoy the incredible happy moment I was having, but it was pretty darn cold!  I am just so happy for the pictures I have to remember that day!

On Friday we went to see the Lego Movie together as a family.  What a funny movie that is!  It was so great to spend time together as a family and I am so happy we got to see such a great movie!  I also found the neatest song this past week from the movie Despicable Me 2 and I absolutely have to post it on here.  Every time I hear the song I think of this blog and I hope it makes any of you who read this smile as much as I do when I hear it!  Here is the Youtube link: http://youtu.be/y6Sxv-sUYtM

Saturday, today, was a great day and I got to sleep in, do things around the house, hang out with my boys, and then head out to a day and evening of fun with friends!  We went and saw Frozen "The Sing Along" with a group of friends from church and preschool.  It was one of the sweetest things I have ever heard!  Over 100 little children voices singing along to the beautiful songs of that movie.  My heart was so touched and I liked singing along with them, but mostly I just loved listening to those precious voices.  I am posting the youtube link to my favorite song.  It makes me SO happy and this snowman REALLY knows how to find the joy!  http://youtu.be/UFatVn1hP3o
ENJOY!

After the movie and getting to talk with some of my favorite people, the boys and I headed out to meet David at our friend's house for some pizza and salad and cookies!  We had so much fun talking about their recent trip to Paris.  They are just such great people and the kids had so much fun running around and playing with their friends.  We had so much fun talking about travels, video games, how to make yummy food, and other stuff.  Can't wait to get together with them again!

So I just had to post all of this because we are out here truly finding the joy in Dallas and I am so thankful for all of the people who are right there with us!  We feel so blessed to live here and so happy to be surrounded by really fun people!  I hope everyone is having a great weekend and that you are able to find the joy, go see a movie, watch some happy moments on youtube, or just relax from a long week.  Take care all!

Month 7

Hello out there readers!

 I have got to say blogging once a month on here is the way to go for this time around!  I am doing a journal at home and writing down little joys of the day.  I am going to bed at a decent hour, AND I am enjoying not feeling guilt for not blogging every day on here because I do not have the time I did the last 365 Days of Sunshine.

Month 7....can't believe we have been here already for 7 months!  This past month has been filled with fun that is for sure!  We traveled back to California for Christmas break and enjoyed our time with family and friends and fun!  We did 3 whole days of Disneyland and California Adventure.  We had SO much fun and had friends join us there for rides and shows.  I got to do a mom's night out at one of my favorite restaurants with friends.  We met up with other friends throughout our stay and had the most wonderful time catching up!  We also got to go fishing with my dad and sister and niece.  We had a blast learning how to fish and even though we didn't catch one darn fish, we still had so much fun learning!  We can't wait to try our luck catching a fish here in Texas now at one of the many watering holes around.

Christmas was very nice and it was fun to drive to California and back.  We stopped in New Mexico and spent 2 lovely days with David's family.

School started back up and life got crazy again!  I had a fun birthday week here in Texas and enjoyed lunching with friends and spending time with my kids going to eat sushi for my birthday.  The boys were SO happy I picked a sushi restaurant for my birthday dinner!  Speaking of lunch, I have really enjoyed this group of ladies who get together on a weekly basis to try different restaurants around town.  I have met so many lovely women and I am so thankful for the friendships I am making!  We also have gone to a couple of adult dinners and had a blast getting to know the husbands and other couples!  People love to talk about politics here in Texas and I am often in political heaven as we talk about guns, the NRA, and other stuff.  A gun range opened in the area recently and we can't wait to go and try it out!

As I said before, I feel beyond blessed for the friendships I am making here.  I have so many joyful friends who have been so helpful!  It is such a blessing to have friends come over and hang out, bring their dog to play with our dog, bring a paint brush and help me paint my china hutch, and hang out and enjoy fun times.

There is so much joy to be had here in Texas.  We are never without trials, that is just a way of life for us lol, but lots of joy to be found as well.  I just feel so lucky to sit in my home and feel the peace wash over me at the end of a long day.  I am so thankful for being my boy's mom and getting to do fun things with them like taking them to the movies, going to a museum, or feeling the VERY cold air with them for the first time!  I am SO not used to living in a cold place, but I have been walking around in 20 degree weather sans gloves lately.  I think I am getting used to it...holy cow!

I have been able to attend my MOPS meetings a lot more this semester and it has been so much fun to get to know more ladies here in town!  We had a mom's night out tonight and it was so much fun getting to know ladies from different tables.  I just love getting to know other mothers and hearing their stories about their kids and what they do.  It is so fun to get the advise from other parents and see how they deal with situations that arise.  We are all doing the best we can....isn't that awesome?!

I am also so thankful for Facebook.  I have been so grateful to keep in touch with so many people from California and it has been so nice to keep tabs on a daily basis with my dear friends from there!  I am hoping for a visit from any one of them...maybe when this state thaws out a bit more?  Being cold all of the time here does have its advantages though.  My very fluffy kitty cat now loves to crawl under the blankets and snuggle down with my.  My dog meanwhile snuggles on the other side of my body...I become an animal taco!  I love it!  Soft, fluffy, fur in each direction keeps me warm all night long!

Well, those are some of the very happy moments from this month 7 in Dallas.  What a beautiful town Dallas is!  I love the shiny buildings and architecture all around.  I just booked a hotel stay for our wedding anniversary weekend at a really nice hotel downtown!  Something to look forward to!  Haven't had a night away from the kids in almost a year!  YEA!  Have a blessed night all and keep finding the joy in your own life!

Month 6 :-)

So hey there!  LONG time no blog!  But you know what?  I have been busy!  Busy having happy moments, busy making happy moments, busy being a mom...isn't that great?!  It is what I wanted the last time I blogged.  I was down and couldn't do the things most moms do for almost a year of my life, so I had the blog to keep me happy and remind me about the good stuff I DID do with my kids during the day.  Now I am out and about with friends and my children all of the time and am hardly on my computer and it is fabulous!  SO, I have decided to do a monthly blog all the way to the end of my first year in Dallas.  It doesn't feel right to just NOT blog anymore, but I will highlight some of the BEST parts of my month so that way I can remember, and if there are some truly phenomenal days I want to remember, well, I will do my best to blog on those days as well!

So here we are almost exactly 6 months to the day (tomorrow) since I moved to Texas!  The first little while was pretty intense, but the past month has been so wonderful!  I have joined a ladie's lunch group that meets once a week at various restaurants around town.  It is on Connor's day off of school and so he comes with me.  He enjoys it so much and love to "wunch with da wadies" as much as I do!

I also belong to a group that meets once a month for "Joy in the Journey" and I have truly made some friends for life there!  I am loving every minute of being in a ward that does many many activities outside of church!  The kids have primary parties, we have adult parties, the lunch group, my joy group, a park group, my preschool, and a recipe club....busy busy!!

Speaking of the recipe club, I had the pleasure of teaching people how to cook a 20+ pound turkey this past month!  I cooked a total of 3 turkeys in November because I was also asked to help cook Thanksgiving Dinner in Louisiana this year.  It was a HUGE success and we all made memories there this year that will last a lifetime!  Life is so much slower in the deep south and there are so many wonderful people that know how to cook really good food....living just 5 hours away is a huge blessing to us!

My mother in law also came out this past month and we enjoyed her visit so much!  We did our first inaugural trip to the Gaylord Texan and enjoyed walking through the carved ice sculputres, the thousands of Christmas lights, hot chocolate (courtesy of GramZ) and dressing up for the cold! (little did we know it would be practice for the future lol.  Yes my Mother in law brought many happy moments to our little family for the week she was here!  She brought so much joy and laughter and play time!  The boys wore her out with sword fights, back yard games, doing an early trip to Target for an PRE Christmas present (because grandparents are always aloud to buy as many toys for their grandkids as they wish!) and going with her favorite daughter in law to all of the fun lunch places around town!

This past week was a week at home and our first encounter with ice.  We had about 5 inches of ice in our backyard and we all settled down for 3 days in our home.  We were extra prepared and it was fun cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my 3 boys every day.  We ventured out one day to try driving on the ice (for those of you who have ever driven in heavy rain it is pretty much like hydroplaning in slow motion).  We went to a field nearby and brought out our California boogie board and went sledding with it!  We had a fun COLD time!  Ginger has been beside herself with all of the available ice to chew!

Well, that is a culmination of a lot of happy moments for the month.  I feel so much better about doing it this way.  I have many little happy moments in my day (like playing hide and seek in our home for an hour with the boys tonight lol).  But I really want to touch on the big ones on here.  I am so grateful as ever for this blog and the opportunity to post joyful moments.  I hope each reader can look back and smile on the previous month and find their favorite moments as well.   LOTS of happy moments to come this next 30 days with many more memories to be made all!

Day 139-141

Well, when RA is kicking your butt each day, it is hard to get on and type lol.  My hands haven't been working so well lately and usually after the boys go to bed I am upstairs and DONE coming down for the evening.  So tonight I made an extra special effort to get back down and hang out and blog!  Because this blog is very precious to me.  It has helped me through so many difficult times!  I can't even believe I have had a broken bone and a surgery during this next 365 days blog lol that totally cracks me up, but hopefully it gives people hope that even in the darkest of times, there are happy moments to be had around every corner!

So Mon-Wed here I go!  I am so thankful for my little family.  We have had some fun and cold days this past week!  It has been so nice to snuggle up with my family and have Family Home Evening for the first time in our upstairs family room.  It was so wonderful to share a lesson and then head over to the bedrooms!  I am SO grateful that David hooked up the TV up there as well so I don't have too far to go on the nights I don't want to go downstairs to watch television!

Tuesday-my friend Lanay asked if I would come hang out with her while she did a laundry day, so I brought over some Starbucks hot chocolates and pumpkin scones and we had a great day of laundry and laughter!  I am beyond grateful for the friendships that I am making out here!  I have barely lived here 5 months but I feel like I have known some of the people out here for years.  It is so wonderful to have friendships with people who are so strong in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who we can share gospel experiences together! We had pizza instead of Taco Tuesday because I went to an activity at church.  It was so much fun hanging out with the ladies from church and getting to know other people better!  We have so many wonderful and funny gals in our ward!

Wed- I had the opportunity to watch my friend's daughter for most of the day while she attended classes.  We had so much fun together!  I bought her a pretty hair band with a blue flower (because I don't GET to buy pretty hair bands with flowers like....ever! lol)  We had a nice lunch together and played with toys and then went and picked up Connor and then Joel and her brother.  It was fun having kids over and having everyone play!  I made pot roast for dinner (I cannot not even explain how much I love cooking in my kitchen!) and we had buttermilk biscuits to go with it.  Tonight we headed out to Target to get some gloves and mittens for the kids.  It is supposed to be in the high 30s/low 40s in the morning and I want those kids nice and toasty warm!  Especially as Joel walks to school!

Well, there is my 3 days of thankfulness!  I am so thankful for friendships made here in Texas.  I am so grateful for my family and the love we have.  I am really thankful that I will be headed to bed early this evening because I am so tired!  I hope all of you are enjoying this month and what ever weather you are getting where you live!

Day 138

WOW....I am thankful that I have not given up on this blog (even during my most tired days it is always on the back of my mind to remember happy moments to blog when I am able).  It is amazing to me that I am nearing the 5 month mark for living here in Texas!

Today was a great day at church!  My first day as nursery leader was pretty much a success and I had a good deal of help because they called a new person to help me and my friend Mari came in for the last while as well.  Other than one kid eating play-doh and having a complete melt down when I took it away from him, no really big cries or upset kiddos today!

I had a lot of fun participating in singing time with them as well as providing fun snacks and doing the lesson.  I am really looking forward to next week!

We came home and headed up to our movie room to watch a Sunday show.  Before long, my eyes were closing and my Sunday nap happened lol.  When I woke up, we had some chicken noodle soup and corn bread for dinner and then Skyped for the next 2 hours with David's parents and my parents!  It was a really fun time watching the kids be so excited talking with their grandparents.  AND we were able to book a flight to have my mother-in-law come out for a visit at the end of the month!  SO looking forward to all of the GramZ/Mother-in-law fun we will have!

I was able to have the energy to make the kid's lunches for the week...I think some of my energy is starting to come back after Joel's surgery!  It only took me two weeks to recover lol but I am thankful I had the energy to to what I did today!  Now off to bed to begin another week of fun with my precious kiddos.

Post 132-137

So, as you can see it has been a while since the blogging lol.  I think it is because school is in session, my RA is flaring like crazy, and all I want to do at the end of the day is go to sleep!  For those of you with chronic illness, you understand the thought process of just 15 minutes MORE of sleep instead of blogging.  BUT I do want to blog and be thankful!  Especially since November is upon us and lots of people are doing thankful blogs.  So even if I sign on here to write one thing each day that I am thankful for this month...I am going to make an effort to blog each day!

I can't believe we have been here for over 4 months now!  It seems like just yesterday we were moving in without any of our belongings to a state that we didn't know if we had a house or not lol.  Now our home is 90% unpacked, things are looking great, we have a movie theater room, a play room, and a beautiful bedroom.  My family loves playing in the backyard.  Ginger loves running in the grass chasing her ball and Joel loves playing basketball with me on our little court.  We are so blessed!

This week was filled with more sleep.  Like I said, I am flaring pretty badly right now but I am taking Humira (this week was a shot week and I did it all by myself again!) and methotrexate and hopefully my body will respond to the combo of taking those two things soon.  For now I do what I CAN when I CAN and leave the rest alone.

This week was also Joel's school book fair and it was fun to get to work at his school, eat lunch with him, bring him in from class to buy books, and buy his teacher books.  There is something so magical about reading and it is such a happy moment to me to see how much Joel and Connor both love the books we bought to this week!

All of my kiddos got to dress up this week.  Ginger got to go to Doggie Day Care as a Bumblebee and she had a blast and looked SO cute!  Connor dressed up for his school parade and Joel got to do a PJ day at school.  Halloween in Texas was great!  We ordered a pizza and ate and then got the boys dressed and headed out.  We did all of our street and another street.  It was so much fun to meet new neighbors and talk to people on our street!  There are so many wonderful people that live here!  The boys had a great time collecting candy and looking at all of the decorations.  They were so cute in their Knight and Jengo Fett costumes!  They went to bed happy and worn out!

Friday was David's day off of work so he got to take Joel and his "Stinky Cheese Man" pumpkin project to school and do breakfast with dad!  I worked at Joel's book fair one last time and then David and I did lunch at our new favorite Sushi restaurant!  It is SO good!  We left with our tummies smiling!  He needed new shoes so we went to the local outlet mall and found some good ones.  It was such a nice day hanging out with him just the two of us all afternoon!  At night we ate dinner and then headed upstairs to the movie room to watch Harry Potter.  It was SO nice snuggling on our couch and watching a movie!  We really felt like we were at the theaters!  I can see us enjoying that room for years to come and I feel so blessed to live here!

Today is Saturday and is is SO cold!  Joel had an early soccer game and we froze as we watched him play.  It was sure nice to have a piping hot cup of Postum to drink while I watched him play!  My Postum came in the mail earlier this week and I have really enjoyed trying out different ways to drink it!  Tonight for dessert I had postum with eggnog as the dairy creamer...it was DELISH!  We all snuggled on the downstairs couch and watched Beetlegeuse...I think that is how you spell it lol.  It was loads of fun and now bath then bed!  I am flying solo in the nursery tomorrow at church so really hoping it all goes well and that the kiddos enjoy their time with me!

Well, I am thankful I was able to write this blog today.  And like I said, I am going to try to do every day in November for a thankful blog as well as happy moment journal.  Hope all of you are enjoying happy moments where ever you may be!