HELP~10 year anniversary vacation?!?!?!?!?!

I would love to go on an awesome 10 year anniversary trip.  I have 3 1/2 years to plan it.  I am a planner, so this is the time to begin thinking about our big trip.  I imagine Jacob and I sitting on a beautiful tropical beach for 6-7 glorious days.  Something that doesn't feel like the Gulf Coast.  I love Gulf Shores/Florida coasts, but I'm looking for something more exotic and tropical.    I would LOVE to go to Hawaii...but I think I'll save that trip for another time because it'll be pretty expensive.  I'm cheap about most things...not toilet paper or toothpaste.  But we don't have a crazy budget for this anniversary trip.  We can't spend much because I also want to take a family vacation to Disney World around the same time $$$.  Some suggestions from a few friends are Cabo, Turks & Caicos or St Lucia.  I would love to make this happen on $2,000 or less.  Is that even possible?!  Another tid-bit is that cruises are out.  Jacob is scared of nothing except for the ocean at night time.  He refuses to even discuss the possibility, as soon as I do, he shows me these.   In conclusion, I need an inexpensive, tropical, exotic, romantic, no cruise, 10 year anniversary vacation.  If you can pull any strings & help a sista out, this is your time to shine!

Please share ideas, suggestions, tips, secrets, etc.  If you hook us up, you can come along....yea, that was a joke.  Not really.

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10 months

At 10 months, Lucy is wearing size 3 diapers & 6-9 month clothes. She's still doing her speed-army-crawl. If I hold out my hands for her, she'll grab them & pull herself up. Her hair is getting longer & thicker; hair bows are finally staying in place. Lucy will clap and wave her little hand by flicking her wrist.  She has 2 bottom teeth & more on the top wanting to cut through the gum soon. She's still our sleeping beauty~~sleeping 12-14 hours each night & 3-5 hours during the day. She's usually down for the night by 6pm. She's loving all the new foods being offered & doesn't turn down much. Every now & then she'll shutter with a new nasty taste...that'll leave us attempting to give her more just to see the body shutter again.  She doesn't need a fancy toy to entertain her...anything will do. She gives open-mouth kisses. Lucy thinks rolling over while we attempt to change her diaper is SO MUCH FUN.  She'll tease us with hugs and kisses, leaning in, then at the last minute...grin big and turn the other direction.  It's so cute to watch her cut her eyes.  It's hard to believe that I'm already planning her 1st birthday party.  Weren't we just waiting in room 333 wondering what she would look like?!? Ah...this little lady is precious!  My heart flutters with love for her.

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I AM SECOND

If you've never heard of the I AM SECOND movement, I'm happy to introduce you to it today.  

It is a movement to inspire people to live for God.  I think it's pretty awesome.  On the website, I found it interesting to hear the testimony from some famous people: MLB player Josh Hamilton, Super Bowl coach Tony Dungy, NFL players Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy, former Korn guitarist Brian Welch, American Idol's Jason Castro, actress Bailee Madison, UFC fighter Vitor Belfort, model Kathy Ireland, country music singer Josh Turner, NASCAR drivers, Soul Surfer & shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton, songwriter Micheal W Smith and many others.

I am taking the 22-Day Challenge and invite you to do it as well.  We all need a little  a lot more God in our lives.  He's waiting on us to seek Him.  The devil is working hard to win us over and we have to fight to be closer to God as the devil is working to keep us from God.  Challenge yourselves to be more Christ-like in all we do.   I want God to work miracles in my life.  My desire is for others to see Christ when they see me.  Pray for me as I take this challenge, and I'll be praying that someone will see this and be encouraged to make changes in their life to be more committed to God.

Update:  As I was typing this the girls were playing next to me.  About a minute after I hit the "Publish" button, I heard Bella saying "Thank you God for Mama and Daddy and Nana and Papa and Pops and Mimi and Dora and Ryeee."  I snapped my head around to see the most precious sight...her little hands were folded and her eyes were closed.  It brought tears to my eyes and proved that God is tapping on my heart...if nothing else, to show Christ to our girls.  To show them the peace and saving grace that only our Lord can provide.  (While we do pray together at night, Bella usually doesn't even close her eyes or bow her head. This is the 1st time I've ever seen her pray on her own.)  Thank you, Lord, I can feel You!

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just plain ill.

I LOVE BELLA, BUT I HATE THAT SHE IS SICK.  She's been under the weather since Wednesday.  She's had a cough for weeks, but then a high fever hit and it went down hill from there.  I took her to the doctor, we did a chest X-ray that, thankfully showed no pneumonia, but did prove bronchitis.  So we've been doing Tylenol & breathing treatments around the clock.  The "Ill Bella" is driving me just a little crazy.  When normally I want to discipline her for things, I remind myself that she's sick...I'm know I'm less than happy when I feel bad.  For the past 4 days, she wants to watch Dora for 10 minutes, then Diego for 17 minutes, then Mickey Mouse for 6 minutes, then Tangled for 23 minutes. She's eaten 7 bites of spagettios.  I've popped 3 bags of popcorn per requested, about 6 kernels got eaten.  I've thrown brown apple slices away that never got eaten.  Looking in my trash makes me feel so sorry for starving children around the world.  I've watched Bella morph as this illness has progressed...from fiery red fevered cheeks, now to a pale face with dark circles under her eyes from the steroids.  Pitiful sick eyes.  And the whining, {oh save me Jesus from the whining}.  Nothing satisfies her for very long.

However, I do think we are on the road to recovery.  PRAISE GOD.  I'm ready to have my sweet, happy, spunky Bella back!!!

"Way down with me mama."

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Mommy Mentors

Brynn and I were talking...parenting is full of daily tough decisions.  I've only been doing it for 2 1/2 years and I'm constantly 2nd guessing decisions that I make.  Sometimes they are super simple like eating marshmallows as snacks and staying up until 9 pm instead of 8. Was I too harsh or am I letting them run all over me?  Some decisions are harder and I'm sure the really tough ones are yet to come.

I am constantly getting advice from my parents.  As a teenager, I have all these sassy opinions about my parents, it wasn't until I reached adulthood and especially parenthood that I learned to really respect them and look to them for parenting & life advice.

Let me take this opportunity to apologize to my parents for every eye roll and doubting and back talking that I did...I'm sorry...if I could take it all back I would...you didn't deserve any of that.

I look up to some mommies that have the same principles that I believe in.  Mommy Mentors, I'll call them, who are no different than me.  They learned as they went just like I'm doing.  My go-to Mommy is Dani.  She is raising 4 children and is still learning as she goes.  But the infant/toddler stage is over for her...so I get all of her secrets of success and failures that she experience.  Along with childhood asthma...Bella is sick...AGAIN.   With her new blog you can learn with her as she goes too, and she can be one of your Mommy Mentors also.

Earlier when Brynn and I were discussing things, I told her that we are just guessing as we go, praying that our guesses are right.  I'll always welcome mommy advice and want to constantly strive to be the best Mommy that I can be.  I want to be successful at parenting more than any other challenge I have or will ever face.  The thing that I try to remember is that as long as they are safe, happy and healthy then we are doing a pretty good job!

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2 year old interviews

Yesterday morning, Bella woke up at 5:15 crying. When I went to her room to tell her it was still dark outside & it was still night-night time, she cried that she wanted to go night-night in my bed.  I let her since Jacob was just getting up to get ready for work and there would be an available warm spot right next to me.  Much to my amazement, she went back to sleep and slept until 9:30!  And much to my pleasure, I slept until 8:30, when Lulu & Rylee were knocking on the front door.  Rylee played quietly.  I saw this 2 year old interview earlier this week on The Little Princess Diaries and I was interested to see what our 2 year olds would say.  Since Rylee & I had some quiet time, I interviewed her 1st:

Rylee's 2 year old interview: (2 years 5 months)(took 5 minutes)
1. What is your favorite color? purple
2. What is your favorite toy? 2 books 
3. What is your favorite television show? Minnie, Daisy, Mickey Mouse
Rylee: What's that on your leg?
Me: prickly hairs.
Rylee: Why?
Me: because I didn't shave.  Let's move on.
4. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? biscuit 
5. What is your favorite snack? Ummm, ummm.  I don't know.  (She is crazy picky)
6. What is your favorite game to play? Upstairs (that's where Bella's room is)
7. What is your favorite animal?  I had to send this part of the video to Lulu for her to translate.
8. What is your favorite song? Princess (I don't know that song??)
9. What is your favorite book? Dora (just a random coloring book she sees on the floor)
10. Who is your best friend? I don't know. 
Me: Who do you like to play with?  Bella
11. What is your favorite thing to do outside? push my stroller
12. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? baby

*There were A LOT more distractions in Bella's interview.  Good thing I videoed all 20 minutes to get all the cute comments*
Bella's 2 year old interview: (2 years 8 months) (took 20 minutes)
1. What is your favorite color? medicine 
Me: No, What's your favorite color?  
I don't know what you're saying.  
Me: What color do you like? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Orange.  
Me: No, what toy do you like to play with?  
I gotta go tee-tee.  
Me: Ok.  
Rylee: Bellwa, can I go too?
Bella: yea, come on Ryeee.
~Bella on the potty~
Bella: I got to poo-poo too.  It's coming.  
Rylee:  (who is standing right in front of Bella who's on the potty)  You got to poo-poo?
Bella:Yea, I poo-pooing. Don't touch it!
Rylee: Are you done?
Bella: Nope
~Silence.............plop~
Rylee:  Are you done?
Bella: YEP!  You need to see it Ryeee?
Rylee- Yea
Bella-right here.
Rylee-Oh. Yep.  You gonna flush it Bellwa?
Bella-Yea, maybe last year.  You want to flush it Ryeee? You can flush it.  You can flush it.
Rylee-I can flush it?!?
Bella- Yea.  Bella gonna flush it last year.
~Rylee gets the honor of flushing the potty~
Bella-Bella not tee-tee in her panties.
Me: Nope, Good job!  Ok, let me ask you some more questions.
~hand sanitizer~
~2 more potty flushes just for fun~
1. What is your favorite color? On my shoes. 
Me: Ok. no, what color do you like?  my horsie. 
Me: Bella think about it, what color do you like?  That. (pointing at the floor) 
Me: What color is that? I don't know? 
(Forget it...)
2. What is your favorite toy?  balls
3. What is your favorite television show? I don't know. 
Me: what do like to watch on TV?  Mickey mouse.
4. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? yellow.  Hey look in the window!  I think it's Bobo. (Uncle Bobo and Aunt Cassi just moved across the street from us and she sees a truck.)  
Me: Yep, So what do you like to eat for breakfast?   Bananas
5. What is your favorite snack? Cheerios 
6. What is your favorite game to play?  Daddy (sweet!!)
7. What is your favorite animal? Rylee:  Oh, there it is animals!!! 
Bella: Awww, It's a wittle baby deer!
Me: Oh! Shhhh,  be very quiet, don't hit the window, don't open the door.  (as I run to grab my camera)

(moving on)
8. What is your favorite song? The Lord has made (This is the Day)
9. What is your favorite book? Dora (the same random coloring book that Rylee said)
10. Who is your best friend? Dora and Go, Diego, Go. 
Me: no, who do you like to play? Mommy  (huge smile on my face!)
11. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play with Rylee
12. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? this doggie (which just happened to be in her hands)

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New Book Collection

I recently pinned this on Pinterest and knew that I wanted to start this Christmas tradition this year.  You wrap 25 Christmas books and number them 1-25. Every evening the children get to unwrap one book and read it under the Christmas tree.  I immediately started a list of 25 Christmas books that I wanted.  I looked on-line to price how much this would set me back.  I price compared used books at Amazon and Half.com.  Half.com was cheaper. Amazon's used books are cheap, but after adding in shipping fees, they were more expensive.  I went to a 2nd and Charles used book store and got 14 used books for $69.  Ranging from $0.50-$10.48. I am happy with that!  Here's my new Christmas collection so far:

In the Christmas book search, I discovered that we were missing some really good books.  So these are some new (to us) year-round books:

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