Random Saturday

Good Morning friends! Happy Saturday! Right now in this season of life our week is SUPER busy from Monday-Friday and then we have our weekends pretty much free ... so even though by Friday night we're exhausted, it's soooo wonderful to sleep in on Saturday, then wake up knowing we have nothing to do and nowhere to be! {except for hubby who works on Saturdays}

Anyway, this morning I just thought I'd share with you a whole bunch of random thoughts from my week. Hope you can follow along!

 

My husband and I and another couple {that our some of our best friends} help lead the Middle school/high school Sunday school for our 3rd service at church. We usually have anywhere from 8-25 kids there. Last week it was my turn to prepare for the lesson and I had a nice quiet afternoon in the house while Bob was at work and the girls were at school. We're using the curriculum called KNOWN and so far it's been fantastic!

 

I truly dread getting up early every morning, but even though I might not NEED to get up, I feel it's important to be up to help my girls get ready for school. My oldest gets up first and comes to wake me up ... I usually stumble groggily to the kitchen to get my coffee to wake me up. Well the Lord has certainly rewarded us in the early mornings this past week - I think just about every single day we've had the most GORGEOUS sunrises to greet us. These are looking out my kitchen door down the street. I'm absolutely amazed by His creation!!

 

 

These photos were NOT edited, the sky really was all those beautiful colors! Kinda makes ya wanna get up early, doesn't it?!

 

 

My oldest had a very busy and exciting week. 3 basketball games, her first band concert and an honor roll breakfast at school to reward all the kids who made honor roll the first semester. She is doing SO incredibly amazing in school and we are SO proud of her! This is not a very good picture, but this was her first band concert. This is her first year playing the clarinet and she's doing quite well. She is the 2nd from the left in the front row.

 

 

And here is her basketball team at their first game. She is number 14 - yes she is SUPER tall already ... very close to passing her Mama! {all these girls are the same age/grade!}

 

 

In other random news:

 

My family and I started watching Duck Dynasty this week - oh my goodness, absolutely hilarious! Good, clean, family friendly humor ... gotta love it!

 

This Thursday also marked the day my Dad died 9 years ago. It's hard. I still miss him so much. When I see kids with their Grandpas I cry, just wishing he could have lived long enough to know my girls and see them grow up. {He met them both but they were 2 yrs and almost 1 when he died so the girls don't even remember him.} When we go to the girl's basketball games or stuff like that I wish he was still here to watch them too. I know how proud he would have been of them and know he would have loved to tease and tickle them {something he was very good at!} I am so grateful to know he's in heaven and I have the assurance through Jesus that I will see him again ... but yeah, sometimes it's just hard.

 

On that note, I read this awesome blog post this week titled 'Six Words You Should Say Today' ... please, please if you are a parent go check it out. What struck me most was that just this week after one of my daughter's games we got in the car and I immediately began telling her all the things I thought she needed to work on. But after reading this post I realized all she really needs to hear from me is 'I really love to watch you play!' She probably already knows what she needs to work on, she probably already feels upset about every shot she missed ... what she really needs to hear is that I'm proud of her and that I love seeing her do what she loves. It made me cry when I read the article! I tend to want to 'fix things' and don't take the time to just tell them how much I love being their Mom. I plan to take this to heart and make sure instead of picking apart and analyzing, I am purposeful about complimenting and letting them know how much I really love being the one who gets to take them to all their events and just watch them do their stuff.

 

And finally ... tomorrow is a BIG day for New England so ...

GO PATRIOT'S!!!!!

 

 

{PS. I realize most of this was about Hope ... next week I will share more about how Joy is doing in HER activities and such.} =)