Healing

A month or so ago I recieved an email from my team captain, Jay, letting me know that he had nominated me to be a flag carrier into Survivor's Circle.  Now while I haven't participated in a 3-Day event yet, I have watched several of them online, and Survivor's Circle brings me to tears every time.

I never actually thought I'd be chosen, but a few days ago, I received an email from the field coordinator asking me to carry the 'Healing' flag.  I was floored. Only EIGHT people were chosen for this honor, and I, I was one of them! I read the email, cried.  Read it again, cried again.  Called my mom, cried some more.  Tweeted with several teammates about it, and cried some more. 

To say this is an honor would be the understatement of my life. 

To be quite honest, ever since I found out my next reconstructive surgery was scheduled just THREE short days after my return from Atlanta, I've been a little nervous.  I've been telling myself that there is no better way to spend the days leading up to surgery than in the presence of many people who go above and beyond to support this terrible disease. And that's totally true. 

And now, being honored by this...and of all things being asked to carry the 'Healing' flag....I'm left speechless.  It comes at a time when, honestly, so much 'healing' from the past year has been occuring. 

This seriously made my day. my week. my month. MY YEAR!

And if that wasn't awesome enough....my friend and teammate, Allie, was chosen to carry 'Courage', and let me tell ya, that fits her to a T.

The only thing that could possibly make this any better would be if my family were able to be there when I finish the walk, and the 'Victory' flag is raised.....

Pixie Cut

last night was a little bit of an emotional night for mommy.

As Breanna was showing Daddy her papers from school, I realized that something looked 'off' with her hair.  To my horror, I realized that she had cut her hair from the front to behind her ear....up to her ear.  A few tears where shed, while Chris was ranting about it just being hair.  I think I recall someone who was very upset when our oldest two decided to give Ava a new hair cut in exchange for letting her play with them a few years back.  But I won't name any names. lol.

All I kept thinking about was, 'But we have family pictures in THREE weeks!'  Chris retorted with, 'I'm real sure Breanna was thinking about family pictures when she decided to cut her hair off, but who cares.  IT'S JUST HAIR!' 

As much as I know he's right....I mean, I am the person who has had fifteen different hairstyles over the course of the five years he and I have been together, but it's different when it's your baby's hair.  The same hair that took so long to grow after having a PICC line in her head.  The same hair we've been working on growing out for about two years.  The hair that I could finally french braid.

As the night went on, I either became delirious, or I just realized how stupid my sulking actually was, because I got to the point that every time I looked at her, I couldn't help but giggle because she looked like she had a one-sided mullet.

Give me a second....I must catch my breath from laughing again.

Luckily, this morning, I was able to get her hair up in to pig tails for school.  She cried all morning.  Twirling her pig tails and saying she didn't want to cut her hair off.  She was still crying when I picked her up from preschool.  I seriously debated not cutting it, and having her wear pig tails for the next year of her life, but once we got in the car she decided she was ready to get it cut.

Our lovely hair dresser held onto all her hair as she was cutting it and made a neat pile so that I could keep it.

Breanna did really well at the beginning...naming off all the shapes and fish on the cape, but before long she was asking the hair dresser, 'How long do you have to cut my hair?'  'Are you almost done yet?'  All the ladies in the salon were snickering the entire time. 

Yes, I know.  I might have the most opinionated three year old on the planet.  And she's NOT afraid to voice her opinions, dislikes, and discomforts.  She takes after her daddy, and he doesn't even try to deny that one. lol.

I finally promised to take her to Burger King if she held still and let the nice lady finish her hair, and the lady gave her her timer.  Which Breanna started pushing buttons on and loudly declared, 'You have TWENTY minutes left! I set the timer like you do, Mom.  She has TWENTY minutes left!'  Wow....okay, so some things I say as a parent (ie...declaring how much time is left on the timer I set to monitor tube time during the week) is not so attractive when it's coming out of my three year olds mouth.

She was also not a fan of getting her hair blow-dried until the stylist gave her a mirror to look in and she started making funny faces at herself.  She's such a hot mess!

It's going to take a little bit to actually grow out to match the other side, but the hair stylist did a good job of blending it in the best she could.  Until then, lots of clips, bows, and flowers in our future.  But she does look really stinkin' cute with shorter hair.  We may end up just keeping it like this.  :)

We ran to Babies N Bloom (a local baby store) and picked her up several head bands and flowers.  She's been playing with them ever since we got home.  And she keeps saying, 'My hair is so pretty.  I'm going to show my U-TAFUL hair to Daddy when he gets home.  He's going to say I'm a PRINCESS.'  haha.  She's right about one thing, Daddy does think she's a (rotten) princess.  And I'm sure he'll tell her she's U-TAFUL too!



Freedom from Perfectionism

The first thing I do when I wake up every morning is pray for my family, read verse-a-day (It's the widget on the top left hand side of my blog), and read the corresponding scripture and that days devotional.

Today's verse was Galatians 1:10 -  "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

"A lingering weight I carry from my past is wanting to be perfect in order to be accepted by God and other people.  Whenever I fail, I tend to want to disappear from the planet.  I berate myself and renew my vow never to let it happen again!

It encourages me to hear Paul say that he was not perfect and that he would not allow his past to dictate his present behavior.  God certainly does not expect me to be perfect; in a sense he is pleased when I do something right!  It has been freeing to me to know that God can break destructive patterns.  He can guide us into confronting the deep wounds of our past by giving us wise counselors, faithful friends and his Spirit.  He, and only he can take away our sin and guilt.

God is in the business of freedom and newness, and it is when I acknowledge my past and confess my sin that I can begin to experience his liberty.  He give new lives for old."

I don't know about you all, but I tend to be very critical of myself, and I worry a lot about not living up to other's expectations of me.  I don't know why I let worry over these things affect me but I do.  And it's one of the things I've been working on and talking through with my therapist these past few months.

Are there days that I can be everything that everyone wants/needs me to be?  Absolutely.  But there are days when I can't do it all because I need to focus on taking care of my needs/wants, and I need to learn to live with that without disappointment in myself.  I've learned over the past several months that those whose opinions I worry about, aren't near as critical of me as I am of myself.  They don't have the high expectations of me that I imagine that they do.  He doesn't expect perfectionism from me.

I needed to be reminded of that today!

Easy After School Snacks

I don't know if this happens in y'alls house, but the minute the door opens after my kids step off the bus, my house is filled with the sound of my children voicing the complaint that they are 'STARVING!' 

I assure them that they aren't starving while I'm serving them up a quick snack.

Chris gets home at 6 p.m. and we try to eat dinner as a family as much as possible, so waiting a little over two hours to eat, is quite a while for them, so we generally have some type of after school snack every day while they are working on homework.

We have the typicals like:  carrots, grapes, strawberries, oranges slices, yogurt, cherry tomatoes.

But on Monday's and Wednesday's we have after school activities, so I make them something with a little more substance. 

One of their favorites is veggie pizza.

I learned this yummy recipe from my former sister-in-law Jen.  It's a favorite at family get togethers too.

1-pizza crust (bake according to package)

Sauce: 1 part cream cheese, 1 part mayo (for 1 pizza I use about 6 oz of each), 1 ranch dressing packet, and half of a can of diced tomatoes.

Topping: carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli.

Sprinkle with stredded chesse

Another favorite is meatballs.

I love them because I literally just throw three things in the crockpot, turn it on, and viola a few hrs later, I have a snack the entire family loves.

1 crock pot, 1 bag of frozen meatballs, 1 jar of chili sauce, and 1 jar of grape jam.  Throw it all together and turn the crock pot on low for 6-7 hrs or high for 3-4.

On Mondays, Kinsey has piano for 30 minutes and the piano teacher has a park right behind her duplex, so the other kids and I take our snack and go play at the park. 

Roll-ups are generally the choices for those days.  Their two favorites are:

Turkey and pickle rolls up.  (Thanks grandma for introducing my kids to these).

This is simply as slice of turkey, chive cream cheese, and a pickle. 

Big A requests these every time he has a party or friends over because they are his favorite snack.

They all also love turkey rolls up.



Tortilla's, cream cheese or ranch, turkey, and veggies of choice.  We generally use thin sliced tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, shredded carrots, and shredded cheese.

And their other favorite is mini pigs in a blanket.

I always loved these growing up....even though I don't really care for hot dogs unless they are grilled.

Crescent rolls, american cheese slices and hot dogs (cut into two).  Assemble, roll, and bake at 375 for 11-13 minutes.

What do you all feed your kids for quick snacks?

My Baby Started School

I thought this day would never come....actually I was hoping it wouldn't.

It's a true indication that my baby is truly no longer a baby, though she'll always be the baby to us.

I think it's fair to say that the big kids were just as excited about her going to school as she was.  They kept saying to her, 'Bre, you're such a BIG girl, you're going to school.'  And on Tuesday morning, after dressing, they all ran downstairs to tell her 'Happy First Day of School.'  And when they got off the bus in the afternoon, all three of them asked her if she had fun at school.

She was most excited about her 'bwutter-fly' backpack.

This picture was taken approximately .000002 seconds before she realized it was chilly outside, and started screaming, 'I'M COLD! I'M COLD!' so loudly that I'm sure all of our neighbors heard her, and further refused to take anymore pictures until I went and got her a 'jackie'.

We leave our house at 7:30 every morning since I have to drop Ava off at 5th Street, Kinsey and Big A at 10th Street, pick Keegan up from his sitter, and take him and Bre to preschool....all by 8 a.m.

Needless to say, it's going to take her some getting used to because like her mommy, Breanna is not a morning person.

Hence, the picture below. haha

This is her 'I'm-cold-and-tired-and-not-amused-by-you-being-in-my-face-with-a-camera' face. lol

But I did manage to get one good one of her and my nephew before walking into the school.

You'd never know that these two are just a mere 7 weeks apart in age.  He towers over her.

We get inside and as I'm talking to her teacher, she takes her shoes off and runs to go play with all the other kids.  No 'Bye Mom' or nothing.  Just as happy as can be.  That is until I came back to pick her up at 11, and ended up carrying her out of the school while she kicked and screamed because she wanted to stay and play. lol.  Good grief, she's such her daddy's daughter.

Today was her second day, and it went much smoother at pick-up.  I'm pretty sure the sucker might have had something to do with it. lol

When we got in the car I asked them what they did today and Keegan said, 'We made da bears.'  Bre chimes in, 'And we gwed, and gwed, and gwed some more.'  (Glued).  Keegan said, "Yeah, we GA-WOO'ED dem bears!  And my bear says, 'What's up fa-woks?'" (What's up folks?).  Bre started giggling and said, 'My bear just says, 'GROWL!'"  Then they both started laughing. 

Silly kids.