Time Out For Women

(in the picture from top to bottom is:  Lori Potter my sister in law "s.i.l.", Lana Dahle my "s.i.l.", Alison Cooper my "s.i.l.", myself, Angie and friend of Lori's, and Heidi Michael.  Heidi is a sweet friend of mine and her and I got to ride together from Gainesville.)

I was so grateful to get to go to a women's conference, called Time Out for Women, in Orlando on the weekend of March 9th.  I went with some great friends and family and had such an amazing and spiritually experience.  Some of the main lessons and reminders that I took away from the conference were to:
*Focus on the positive rather then the negative - your circumstances won't necessarily change but your attitude will and you will feel so much better.
*Be forgiving and just "let it go"
*A reminder that my actions will affect my children tremendously, therefore I need to try my best to keep my cool and discipline with love.
*Charity isn't something you do for others its the pure love OF Christ for us.  We have to have a relationship with Christ and truly feel his love for us and then how we treat others will be an effect of feeling Christs love for us!

There were many more lessons and beautiful music during the weekend.  It was also a great weekend with some dear friends and some of my sister in laws.  We went out to dinner, stayed one night in an awesome hotel, and some of us did a little shopping after the conference was over before heading home.  This weekend was exactly what I needed to recharge!  A big thanks to my sweet husband for taking care of the kids so I could go!

Celebrating the New Year with a new kitty :)

For Christmas we gave the kids a kitty, or a promise for a kitty.  Grant and I had wanted to surprise them with a new kitty on Christmas morning, however, we searched and searched for the right kitty before Christmas and were unable to find one.  So on Christmas morning the kids were still surprised to learn, from a card, that they would be getting to go with us and pick out a kitty.  About two weeks after Christmas we went to a big shelter event at the local Pet Smart store and there we found our sweet kitty Coconut.  We probably held a dozen or more kittens that morning and none of them felt right until Miles picked "CoCo" out of a cage and she just snuggled up and chilled in his arms.  Then Shelbie held her and she did the same thing and that's how we knew that she was perfect for our family!  I am so glad that we waited and found the right kitty cause she is absolutely so perfect for our crazy kids.  She just goes with the flow and lets the kids carry her around,  then she has had enough she will just run away for some alone time.  I am so glad we got a kitty and it is so fun to watch the kids with her! 

Almost every night when I go and check on the kids I find CoCo snuggled up with Fisher in his crib.  I have actually had to start closing Fishers door cause CoCo has started to wake him up during the night.  She will get so close to him, sometimes on top of him close to his face, that it wakes him up and scares him.  I think its so sweet but not when it wakes him up sad.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve the kids got to open the annual new Christmas pjs present.  I probably get more excited about the cute pjs then they do but they still seemed to love them :)

 Coral, Fisher, Miles, and Shelbie

The magic of Christmas morning, especially with young children, is so much FUN!  Our tradition is to look at what Santa brought first and then the stockings.  This year since we had to go to church at 9am on Christmas morning we did only Santa stuff and waited for the family gifts until after we got home.It worked out really well and we had a really fun and relaxing afternoon playing with all the new toys.

Fisher with his gift from his best buddy, cousin Ruby!

Coral with her gift from MaMa and Big Daddy.

Shelbie with her "Doodle Bear" from Leland and Miles with his stomp rocket from Evelyn.