Oh December...you are here.....and you ROCK! Late Post!

REWIND TO DECEMBER PLEASE I FORGOT TO POST THIS


DECEMBER! Oh the joy of this month. So much love. So much coziness. So much magic!!

Hensley is at the age where the magic of Christmas is in full force! He loves the lights, the idea of Santa and presents. So this year I plan to do as much fun, cozy, Christmas, memory making magic as possible!!!


We went to see Santa :) Hensley's experiences with Santa have been few and far between. His first Christmas we went to see Santa. There was no crying but there was no smiling either. No reaction. Last year we had photos made with the whole family and Santa and....he cried unless I was sitting right beside him. This year was a TOTAL HIT.

Our local Mall :) 

my the difference a few years make :/

We did another yearly tradition today...we got a family ornament :) 

It was our first experience at a parade this past weekend!!! Andy was working which was no fun, but my brother Brandon was eager and willing to tag along so off we went :)
The Greensboro Parade is a huge event (90 - 100000 people!) We arrive early, ate breakfast at a downtown place and walked a few blocks to get the perfect spot to see it all :)

This will for sure be on our annual traditions list!!!


Cinnamon Ornaments are a must :)

During all our holiday magic.....the flu took over :(

Both of these pics were taken after we had to cut our neighborhood Christmas party short because Hensley developed a very high fever and vomiting. :/ We were in the ER FOREVER! It was by far the sickest I have ever seen my boy :(

With December came that start of a new adventure....SOCCER!
We had no idea if Hensley would like it or not but he is a very active boy and he loves most all sports. So...we gave it a shot, and so far so good :)

Our days with these little cuties are few and far between now with the weather starting to get so cold and dreary! I am excited for spring just be outside playing with them again :) 

Hensley has really been into helping me cook and bake and I LOVE IT :)

Our tree is up and we spend alot of time gathered around it and soaking in its beauty! Just another little part of the magic :)

We had a Polar Express night with pop corn and hot chocolate! It was great and Hensley really really enjoyed the movie :) This is one my new traditions list too :)

I am loving the bundle up weather and all the cute scarves :)

Neighbor gifts and teacher gifts are all done :) CHECK!!!

School friends gifts too! CHECK!

I came across a new blog this past week thanks to a regular blog I read  Naptime Decorator. It's called One Project Closer and the lady who runs it Jocie is amazing. I recently commented on a Christmas pallet project she did and I loved it so much I asked her if I could pay her make me one. Then one day.... it appeared via mail at my house with a simple note, "Merry Christmas". There just are many people like her these days! What a special lady!

We recieved this letter from our Pastor and I am instanely reminded how amazingly blessed we are :)

Hensley and I went on a little mother son date last week. We rode around downtown and looked at Christmas lights, decorations and the ice rink. We strolled through Friendly Center and walked around looking at the shops and even snuck in a pet store and loved on some puppies. We hit up Starbucks and shared a warm drink and a snowman cookie :) It was perfect.

As Christmas Day got nearer the stores got more crowded, there was traffic everywhere, and people all in a rush. We however were done. The presents were wrapped, bought, and we felt accomplished. So as the last weekend before came we decided to skip all the crazy hectic places and we hit...THE BOWLING ALLEY! We had it all to ourselves and considering Hensley deep love for the sport it was a great way to spend the day :)  Everytime Hensley rolled the ball and knocked a few pins down he would shout, "YES!!! I GOT A SPEAR!!!"

Our annual family Christmas tree picture was taken this year! :) This is my favorite tradition ever!!!

We had both of our families over this year for Christmas eve. It's something I have wanted to do since Hensley was born and I decided to make it happen this year! It was so worth it. Everyone came. We ate great food. We talked and caught up. We laughed. We shared. We opened gifts. We loved :) This is a must from here on out.

Santa Came! And all the magic that comes with that morning came right on with it.

We spent the afternoon at Granny and PawPaw's house eating lunch, opening gifts and having a ball :)

Out evening was spent at Maw Maw Louann's with Hailey and Kevin! Headed back home and had 4 wonderful days with the kids :) The kids had so much fun!

Day 6 of 30 blogs in 30 days :)

Today's topic is a classic. What would you wish for if you had three wishes?

Wouldn't we all love to have three wishes .... to make our lives a little easier or a far fetched dream come true?

Well here are mine:

1) Number one is something I have always always always wished for as long as I can remember. I would wish for my brother Brandon to have perfect eye sight. He was born with several eye diseases and over the years those symptoms have progressed and got worse. I think maybe if he had his eye sight he wouldn't be the person he is today (which I love by the way). But I KNOW his life would be better and many of the struggles I have seen him face wouldn't have happened. Throughout all his many obstacles he has made so many accomplishments and done things even I couldn't do!!! He went to New York all alone for Occupy Wall Street, he went to Brazil on a mission trip for two weeks, he went away to college! He has done so much considering what all has tried to hold him back. I would love for him to see the way I do and DRIVE and not have to give up his love for reading and videos games (which is slowly coming due to the severity of his condition). I love him more then he will ever know and I know one day in the future he will come to live with my family when my grandparents pass away... and I am looking forward to that time with him. To help him. Guide him. Love him.

2) My second wish is a little selfish. I wish Hensley would stay little forever! Every mothers dream I know! It's a double edged sword really because I so look forward to him growing and seeing his accomplishments and the way he makes for himself in life and at the same time I absolutly HATE the thought of him going to school in a year and half and being away from me every day all day. I am so thankful to GOD that I have a little boy who will grow normally and mature and be able to be independent and not held back from a disability or anything but I just love his time with him. I love his cuteness, the way I can still carry him with ease, his little hand in mine, our days together where we laugh and love and make memories! I think about having another baby all the time but I know in reality I really just want my Hensley Cole small again! :)

this pretty much sums up our days :) 

3) My last wish is for my grandparents. They have made me who I am. Touched so many lives. I did a blog about them a while back here. They are having set backs in so many areas of life. Their declining health, economic struggles, and just life getting older. They are such amazing people who are always doing for everyone else. They are everything to me and my last wish is that their remaining days, weeks, months, or years here with us are as joyful and comfortable and filled with love as possible. I wish they would be in good spirits and in good health. They deserve only the best!

Day 8 of blogging for 30 days

Five passions you have .....

1. To repeat the obvious...my son. His happiness, health, safety and well being. I stress about things from school lunches, to the perfect Christmas gifts, running to fast on the sidewalk, and how much sleep he is getting. He had the flu this past week and it was awful and worried my pretty little head so very much!

2. Animals: this is something my husband and I both share. We have a huge soft spot for animals and it breaks our heart to see one wondering alone, or at the shelter. They are just so innocent and it's impossible for us not to love them all. If we could we would have a ton :)

3. My family and the atmosphere we create to live in. I am overly in love with traditions, routines, special times, photos of us, etc. We have so many people that love us and are in lives but at the end of the day its just us three (plus Sophie) and I think it's so important that we create our traditions and keep them alive. Pass our morals and love for GOD onto Hensley. Read together. Laugh daily. Cuddle too much. And just create a warm, loved, comfortable, kind place in our home for us all to grow and succeed.

4. SCHOOL! I am starting school in January and over the last 4 years of not being in school its something that has become so much more important to me. When I was in college a life time ago I didn't take  it seriously. I didn't think it really mattered. That perspective has changed quite a bit now.


5. Growing my spiritual relationship with GOD. It has been a growing relationship that I have been taking more and more time to nurture over the past three years. It's something I see in my daily life now and something that makes me a person with more kindness, love, faith and hope. I not only want HIM in my life, I NEED HIM in it. It's become a necessity. I have so much more growing to do and learning to do.

There is still hope.

After all the things that have happened the past two weeks. The shootings. The loss of innocence. The bomb threats. The looming end of the world speculation. Hate. Rage. Heartbreak.

Follow the link and remember there is good. There is love. There are people who care. There is HOPE.


Don't let this world harden you.

Focus on the good friends. Focus on your families. Focus on giving back. Focus on doing what needs to be done. Do good without needing recognition or payback.


 Love. Give. Pray

Tragedy

Touched. Broken. Awakened. Stunned. Crushed. Lost. On my knees. Wondering.

My heart is broken for the kids and adults who were killed this morning in the Connecticut shooting. My heart aches for those parents, teachers, children and families. They said on the news that this is the worst school shooting in American history.

As I watched the news this morning, my heart cried out to the Lord– praying for those involved, and also wondering why God allowed this to happen. How could this happen? 

Then I recalled who the LORD is. He did not turn His back when the shooter went in this morning. He did not forget about His children. He did not forsake them.

But then, why does God allow suffering in this world? I may never fully understand the why. But I know that it’s not because God doesn't care. Timothy Keller, a pastor in New York, explained it beautifully in a message he gave after 9-11.

“One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress to me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that he interprets any move against them as a move against him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says he goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in – suffering and death! He didn't come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.

But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means? John Stott puts it this way. John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be.

And this is key:

It can’t be that he doesn't love us! It can’t be that he doesn't care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. OK  it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.

And lastly, we have to grasp an empowering hope for the future. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and even more explicitly in the Christian Scriptures we have the promise of resurrection. In Daniel 12:2-3 we read: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake….[They]… will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and…like the stars for ever and ever. And in John 11 we hear Jesus say: I am the resurrection and the life! Now this is what the claim is: That God is not preparing for us merely some ethereal, abstract spiritual existence that is just a kind of compensation for the life we lost. Resurrection means the restoration to us of the life we lost. New heavens and new earth means this body, this world! Our bodies, our homes, our loved ones—restored, returned, perfected and beautified! Given back to us!”

-aj

Day 7 of 30 Days of blogging

Day 7 seems like a pretty cut and dry question: What would be your dream job and why? But for me it's a little more complicated. It's an answer that has evolved over time. Had you asked me in high school my answer would have been: marine biologist.

Fast forward to college. I have found out my crazy fear of the ocean and found a love for nursing!

 Fast forward again to 2009 and I have found my total passion for motherhood and all that it entails! I have found my niche. My love. A huge piece of my heart. The job, not always glamorous and it doesn't pay, but the rewards and benefits are astronomical. I can't imagine not having this job and I can't not imagine doing it full time. I totally respect and understand the strength it takes for working moms to get up each and everyday and leave their kids because it's what they have to do. I know I am blessed. I know I am lucky to have this amazing full time job. It's a job I'll never want to resign from or quit.


 Now fast forward to today. To a day when my little cuddly boy is getting bigger, more independent, and closer to being in school all day and not with me. This is sad! Bittersweet actually. So my brain is churning and knowing that I will have more time on my hands and will not need to be so full time anymore I am now wanting and working toward a new career path. I have found a passion for sonogram technicians. I found this passion through the experience of losing my first child. The many months and many sonograms I had with no detection of anything wrong and then BOOM! Everything was wrong. I want to learn this field. Help every woman I can to learn that their babies are healthy and normal or, God forbid they aren't healthy, to help them find out at the earliest stage possible and avoid the immense heartache I had to endure. I hope this path is what God is leading me to. I hope this is HIS plan because in the end that's the only plan that matters. :)

Life is always changing. Always evolving. Ever growing.

Day 5 of 30 blogs in 30 days

Today is the 5th day in the 30 day blogging challenge. Today's topic is: List 5 things that make you happy right now!

This is pretty easy! 

1)  Christmas and EVERYTHING about it. Our tree. Hot coca. Gingerbread houses and other Christmas crafts. Ice Skating. Chilly weather. Presents. Many amazing Christmas fun events to attend. ELF ON THE SHELF!! Visiting Santa. Seeing Hensley's face light up at it all :)

2) The fact that very very soon I will be back in schooL :)

3) Our family Christmas pictures! AHHHHHH!!!

4) The fact that I am home daily with my beautiful little boy to watch him grow, teach him, enjoy him, and not miss a minute of this time that is flying by so fast!

5) And.....HER :)