Refreshing...

So tonight was the start of our very first young "married" couples Bible Study! The last bible study I went to drew more of the "singles" crowd, and for that, along with other reasons I stopped going. Fast forwards 2 years, and we now have two little boys to boot...so finding the time to each get out to some kind of separate bible study was challenging. My sister and her husband started sharing how they wanted to start one, and there were many other couples we each new that were wanting to do the same thing. So we finally set a date and did it! Everyone met up at our place, and I had my little sister in the play room watching all of our children (bless her dear heart). It turned out wonderful! Just having that time to sit down with other couples who are in the same season as you are, and then all challenge eachother and grow together!! Ya it was that good, but that's honestly what happens when the Lord shows up :) I love it when He does that! Just to see how the Lord was laying the same things on all of our hearts was so cool. We decided to go through Galatians, and boy is it packed full of good stuff! I got so much out of it as we were reading it, and look forwards to going through it again. If you are a young "married" couple and would like to join us, you are more than welcome too! In fact, I would highly encourage you to come! It was refreshing!

What do you do when it's 100 Degrees out??

I have not posted in awhile, due to a busy schedule :( I usually sit down to blog once the boys are down for nap/bedtime. But, recently we have been pretty busy with nothing to important haha. I tell myself each week, "ok, this week I am going to hang around home and get things done".....ya then I get a txt from my mom...or sister..or a friend...So I tell my self, "sure just this once" and I end up saying that at least 5 times a week. So anyways, we have had 95* weather here with the heat index in the 100's!! That's HOTTT! My mom planned a fun Beach day on Wednesday. It was so much fun and awesome that most of my sisters were able to come because they had the day off! So my Grandma joined and then some of my younger siblings! We headed over to Kirk Park on Lake Michigan. I had never been there before, but really enjoyed it...it was kind of secluded (which we like) and I think we will hit that park again this summer...maybe even tonight! (rabbit trail) I am so blessed to have a Husband who strives to guard his heart and his eyes for me :) He requests not to go to the popular beaches, due to how the women walk around in less then they would wear in a locker room...I think it's awesome (his decision), so I try my best to honor his wish...even though it can be hard when "everyone else is going there" and we find something else to do. But the more I think about his "leadership" in that area, the more it makes me smile. Especially with two little boys..soon to be young men (if I blink), just knowing that their Daddy is such a wonderful example to exemplify. What a blessing! Anyways...I just had to Boast in what the Lord has given me!! So ya, my mom put this whole beach day together Wednesday! It was a blast! The water was a tad frigid, so we all sat out and soaked up the sun!! Maybe a little too much sun though! My friend Laura, gave me an idea to bring a Pac n Play to the beach...It was awesome!! I was able to lay the boys in there for their naps!! It worked perfect! After the beach we headed back to my parents house, then took a dip in their neighbors pool!! It felt sososo nice! Today to beat the heat, I went shopping with my sisters :) Good times! Again, to Boast in what the Lord has given me...I love my sisters! I can't imagine what life would be like without them..I know I say this often, but it's so true. We are each so much apart of each others life, even though a few are miiiillleeesss away (Sarah and Beth). So here are the photos I snapped this week!! Enjoy! Oh and again, they are from my phone camera, so bare with me on the quality :)

First you need to secure your tanning blanket :)

Grandma and Zachary

A few minuets after Gmas magic ;)

Ayden LOVED the sand!!

Aydens BEST Buddy

These were my sister Hannahs "kids"...She is a nanny :)

Beach Bum :)

Side not: Check out the big 3 month old!!! 

Welcome SUMMER!!!

So it's been a few days since I last posted! I feel like I have been sosos busy. For Fathers day, we pretty much spent it running around to different family get togethers. As important as family is...we will have to do things a little different next time... We came home around 11pm exhausted! The kids did not get naps, so they were all screams and grumpy pants when we got home! I Love family, but there comes a point where you have to sssllllooowww down. Especially since it was on a Sunday, which should be a day of rest. When we went to bed around midnight we both agreed that that was the moment we were finally resting all day. Not cool...I think every newer developing family goes through this stage of learning and finding out you can't be as "flittery" (for lack of a better word lol) as you were when you were dating. I love having kids and learning as I go...so anyways...now it's Friday already!! I Love Fridays!! Why? Because it means my Love is home ALL weekend! I Love having Ben home...He is so sweet and patient and fun and loving and helpful and happy and..ya I could go on and on! But I honestly do look forwards to the weekends for that one thing!

So Tuesday it was almost 100 degrees outside...so my sister and I decided that it was a great Beach day! Se we headed out to our local beach and had a great time!! Ayden still hates the water :( I need some ideas on what I can do to make him enjoy it!! He loves bath time, but that's it. But after he and Isaiah had fun in the sand (which included a face plant with a stick face) we decided it was time for them to sleep...so we could lay out lol...Ayden was so wiped, that after watching kids play in the water, he fell fast asleep...Zachariah, on the other hand, wanted to be held the whole time because he was in pain from having his circumcision dine that morning!

The best part of my week so far was that night my husband got me a rose and told me he had a surprise for me on Thursday.. My guess was that it was going to be a date night or something...but he had asked me about a month ago, what some of my dreams were as well as "what were some things I would like to do" in life. So I gave him my list and one of the things I most desired was to do Ballet again. I had done it about 4 or 5 years ago, but became to busy. So anyways, he surprised me with ballet classes every Thursday! I was pretty shocked! He had it all set up for me, so I dropped the kiddos off at my sisters and went to my first class yesterday! It was sosososo much fun! To actually have an hour to do something I have been desiring to do for awhile now, was such a blessing! I got to meet some more awesome ladies and have a really awesome dance instructor! Thanks again Lovey!!




 Here are just some random pictures!!
I took these pictures of my oldest baby Ayden! He is 14 months old, and we pulled him up to the the table (instead of his highchair) for the first time last night. It was so cute to watch him feel like a big boy as he sat there and ate. We handed him a fork and he actually fed himself! It was bitter sweet because I realized that he is not gonna be my little baby for much longer :( But like my Pastor said this week, "we are not raising them to be children, we are raising them to be adults".
Side Note: these are from my camera phone so they are a tad blurry :)

Picking, eating, Jammin

    So my sister Julie and I, have been talking about how we look forwards to going berry picking with our kiddos and Husbands! It's one thing to pick year after year for mom...lol...it's a whole different thing to watch your little man go haywire eating every berry he can find...and then picking a few here and there...but in the end eating more than he was picking :)
   Anyways, my mom got wind of this and called us up telling us, that right now was peak season, so if we wanted to go she was gonna take us, as well as teach us how to make jam!!!
   We were stoked! So I also called up my friend Jonna, and She joined us as well with her little guy Ishmael. We got to the patch, and heard it was pretty slim pickin...That, my friends, is what 5 little siblings come in handy for :) My mom brought them along to pick for us!! Doesn't get much better than that haha... We had alot of fun though. Ayden was so much fun to watch! Once we taught him to pick and put in our buckets...he decided it was more fun to take one bite out of every nice berry in your bucket, then put it back! So we gave him his own bucket, and taught him how to fill it. He actually caught on! But, once his bucket had a handful in there...him and his little friend went to town! It was a ton of fun watching them, for sure!

   So once we finished picking, we headed to my amazing mom's house :) She had three stations all neatly set up. One was for cutting the stems off (which she had the little siblings do for us older ones:) ), the other was the smashing and filling jars station, then finally the cooking...She even had purchased my sister and I our very own canning supplies! I was impressed with how simple it was to make for ourselves strawberry Jam! Here is how much I brought in...that is with the help of my little brother Gabe! Thanks Gabe!!

My loot!

Uncle Gabe teaching Ayden :)

So cute

He catches on pretty fast!

Please notice that he is eating the
WHOLE thing...leaves straw...and all!

He is now filling his own bucket :)

 Alrighty now on to making the Jam! Super easy!!

Step.1

Wash, Cut off stems then SMASH 2 cups of strawberries!!

Step 2. Ad your Sure Gel, Then boil until you can't stir out the bubbles

I made this picture HUGE to prove a point :)
This Step will make every healthy fiber in you SCREAM!
Step 3. Add 7 Cups of sugar!! Ouch

Step 4. Bring mixture to a boil, once again, until you can't stir out the bubbles.

Step 5. Funnel into clean jars

My sister Julie and our mom..Both beautiful :)

My friend Jonna, also Beautiful :)

Step 6. Wash rims, put lids on

Final Step, Drop in water bath, bring to boil, than start timer for 10 min!!


Super easy..once they are done in the pan, take them out and let them sit over night to seal!!
YUMMY...
It was so much fun to be able to tell people that I "canned Jam" today!! We all felt like real Homemakers :)
Thanks Mom for a great time!!

Unexpected Visitor

So as if my younger siblings hadn't had enough of "Ben and Becky's" house, they found themselves back at our place for another sleep over! Oddly enough, they had requested they stay with us :)
Why the sleepover again??? Well, my oldest brother Buddy lived in Tennessee, He worked out there doing building and roofing. We had the pleasure of seeing him about once every year, and only for a day or two! We always missed him and wished he had lived closer. Well....he was hired onto a job where the man was building a huge house. I probably won't get all the facts 100% acurate, but you will get the idea of what happened. So he was above the second story and over 20 some feet in the air when he fell off the house and landed on his feet! Thankfully he didn't land any other way, because He probably wouldn't be here today! Turns out he pretty much crushed his heels and feet, and then broke both his legs pretty good :/
     So My parents were planning on heading down to Tennessee for the weekend to help him out, with hopes (and all our prayers) that he would decide to come home with them! Ssssoooo, this all means that the two little Amigas +1 Amigo needed a place to lay their heads and then be woken up bright and early with little Ayden saying, "Hhhaayyy" and throwing his big red ball at them....all this because Ben and I wanted sleep and thought we would dump him off in the basement with the kids, in hopes that they would keep him busy!!!! Haha :) So ya they spent two nights with us! We then got news that Buddy had decided he wanted to come back to Michigan with my parents!! Praise the Lord for that!!! We are sososososo excited about having him around. It has been really cool having him just sitting there being apart of the family again. Just watching him, made me realize just how much I missed his presence even more! I'm so excited to have the opportunity to get to know my brother again, and also to have him be apart of my babies lives as Uncle Buddy!!! I want to tell the Story further, about my weekend, but with pictures...because I Love pictures!!


So Saturday was SUPER HOT!! So it called for some swimming!! Thanks to my parent's AWESOME neighbors, we were able to swim for quite some time.

So they thought it was so cool how you could easily hold another person up, while in the water...
So here Betsy (on the right) is pretending to be a bratty baby..No wonder Ayden
was afraid to go in...lol

 I was nervous about what Aydens 's reaction was gonna be, because I have put him in tiny baby pools, and he has hated every second of it...along with fireworks and any other "fun" summerish activity :)
After giving it a try, he ended it quickly with floods of tears and screams...so he sat on the patio and watched everyone else have a good time...

Then when they pulled out one of his favorite things (A Big Ball), he began to have second thoughts...

Thanks to one of his favorite Uncles (a.k.a lil Nater) and some encouragement from mommy and daddy, he slowly started having fun :)

Equals a fun time!!

Mommy and Daddy's support

Plus uncle Nate's Support...

  

He actually had so much fun that he was giving out kisses :)

Ayden Loved joining the
game of "pool Baseball"

So I had to throw this one up to. As I was snapping pictures,
he makes this face complete with the  "tick or click" noise.
I thinks he's pretty cute :)

Zachary Felt left out of our little pool party...so we snuggled a bit!
So far he loves his mommy snuggle times! And so do I :)

 So ever since we moved into our new place, we have been having lots of people over on Sunday nights! It has been sososo wonderful eating, chatting and getting to know some awesome people!!! It was even more special, because my big brother Buddy came along!! During these parties, I stay pretty busy with filling food, and taking care of my babies and of course chatting, that I always forget to snap pictures! So I asked my lovely sister Hannah if she could take some, and this is what she got. This is Buddy throwing a football with Nate our little brother! I thought it was sosoososos cute!!!

I hope you are having as much fun as I am this summer! One thing the Lord is constantly reminding me of, is that when I am feeling low or stressed and discouraged...I need to count my blessings and thank Him for each one!! It is amazing how fast doing that, can change your attitude! In the Bible, grumbling is right along side other huge sins such as Sexual Immorality and Adultery!! My prayer lately is that the Lord will get my attention right away, when I start slipping into that "grumbling" state!!! Why??? Because I am sosososo incredibly blessed, and He has given me WAY more than I deserve, so much so that the very LEAST I can do...is Praise Him no matter what!! I wish it was as easy as it sounds at times! But for some reason when it is most crucial to praise Him, it can feel like the HARDEST thing!! So be encouraged when you are having a hard day, knowing that you are NOT alone!! But most importantly, Praise Jesus for all that He has done for you and given too you!!