five on friday. simple.

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1. i decided that there were two thing i was going to do this summer once a week. 

    a. bake something new. (i have absolutely no baking skills)

    b. read a book from my shelf. i buy book like nobody's business. then, they sit. for.YEARS.

this week i baked and read. this week was a win. seriously, i even went to the gym. TWICE. ha!

2. this weeks reading choice was the notebook by nicholas sparks. he's my fave. i've read most of his books. somehow i'd never read this one. i mean, i've seen the movie hundreds of times because, favorite. AND who doesn't love Ryan Gossling as Noah Calhoun? all that to say, the book got me wishing for simpler times where people weren't so connected electronically and more connected in the flesh. the above picture screams SIMPLE to me. for a while i enforced "NO ELECTRONICS SUNDAYS" it is the sabbath after all and our electronic connections need a rest too. but the fight got tiring and i let it go. i feel like it's time to bring it back. i've got my armor on and i'm ready.

3. my momma is getting married in T-minus 8 days. we couldn't be more excited for her. for more on that click here.

4. as i was driving my eldest to summer school this morning, (he's taking PE to get it out of the way and make room for an extra class in his schedule) we were talking about drivers licenses. he'll be getting his in 8 months. >insert ugly cry here< and i realized i have been a driver for 18 years. how in the H did that happen? time is a chump you guys, TIME.IS.A.CHUMP. 

5. my birthday is this week. sigh. i want this pinterest board to come to life in my back yard in a bad way. i'm so impatient sometimes. i want it now. but you know, things take time. for starts my handy hunk of a husband is going to build me a pair of these. this is on my honey do list next.

happy weekend lovelies.

xxO

made for more

so i decided to do this crazy thing with my sister and cut out all gluten, all dairy, and all sugar real and artificial. because i fully know i can't do any of that by my little ol' measly self, i bought the book made to crave by lysa terkeurst and have been reading a chapter a day. it's the best thing//book i ever did//ever bought. God wants us to take care of our temples. i was absolutely blown away by how many bible verses talk about food. SERIOUSLY WOW. gluttony is real and real BAD. God wants us to crave HIM and crave HIM alone. lysa has shown me that it is ok to bring anything to God even if its begging for strength to make a change to your diet. before i always felt like it was a vain thing to bring before him. but he wants it, he wants every single part of you.

currently i am on day 9 and even though weight loss is a bonus, i did this to feel better physically. my stomach was always hurting and burning and feeling full. the dr had prescribed me a plethora of "stomach" medications and quite frankly i was sick of taking them and didn't want to have to rely on them just to feel okay for the rest of my life. a change, even though its been painful was necessary.

i feel like i have to be honest here too. the first 6 days were rough. i felt so tired and slightly upper irritable addiction to junky food is real. but i pushed through and i feel overall so much better.

my plan is to eventually slowly add foods back into my diet to try and narrow down what foods make me feel bad. i'm excited. to see how this all play out. and by God's help and grace i will stick it out and find out what my "triggers" are.

if you haven't read made to crave. get it and read it asap. it will change your life. i promise.
we we're made for MORE!
more than our cravings. more than upset stomachs. more than a mediocre relationship with God.
M O R E.

My Heart In 12'

these are some of my favies of 2012.

enjoy.

the Fellas

at sissy's wedding. 

GOD IS GOOD!

thankful they're not too old for the patch.

he's taller boo.

mustache eskimo kisses are the best.

Happy New Year 

wishing you all a blessed 2013.

My Cup. Revisited.

originally posted on 11.15.11
however i've let the half empty monster creep back in
so i decided to revisit it. 

i have a confession.
my whole life i have been a cup half empty type of gal. i have always played the woe is me card. this is a fact about me that i am not proud of. 

about two years ago i decided i needed to change. i had just turned 29. 29. i started to panic. i was not who i thought i would be at 29. heck i never thought i would be 29. i decided it was time to take an active approach and change all the things i didn't like about me. problem was i focused on the outside, not the inside. because you know, if you aren't pretty outside you wont be pretty inside. *rolling my eyes at my stupidity*

i started working out and eating better and lost 18 lbs. i was getting compliments on how good i was looking. and of course i 
ate.it.up.

later that year my husband had to go out of town on business for two months. i was not happy about this and fell apart. i stopped exercising and reverted to my old ways of woe is me. and guess what gained all of the weight plus an extra 10 lbs back over the course of a year. who does that. oh yes...ME!

last year i realized that i still wasn't all that happy. 
and why not? i am tremendously blessed. i am living the american dream. i am a christian...why wasn't i happy.

here is what it came down to.
i could talk a big game about the lord. but i wasn't actively pursuing a relationship with him. of course i would fall down on my knees when things weren't going my way, but how about the day to day. we prayed with our children everyday, but i was doing it because it was part of the routine not because i wanted to. shameful i know. 

over the last year i have been trying (i saying trying because of course there are days that i fail) to actively pursue a relationship with christ. becuase you really can't have a half full cup without him. i want my cup to remain half full for the rest of my life.

 the other day while reading my bible i came across this:

 "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!  You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, also."  

Matthew 23: 25-26

this rocked my world. i haven't been able to get it out of my head, nor do i want to. pretty much says it all for me. 

this is how i interpret it. if you are actively pursuing a relationship with the Lord by whole heartedly following the commandments, reading and living in the word, praying and giving thanks, that when we open our mouths love and kindness will pour forth. we will sparkle and shine without even knowing it.
if we are doing it out of routine or because we want to "look good" in front of others inside we will be a hot mess. 

are you actively pursuing a relationship with the Lord?

here's to our cups shining for all to see and when we do fail that we get right back in to the pursuit with the quickness.

xxO

five on friday 9.21

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1. i learned this week the hard way, that the minute you don't think you have a problem is the minute you really do. Lord Help Me be a first rate version of myself.

2. i saw my h.s. bestie on tuesday. i hand't seen her since november. i realized at that moment how much i missed her. i am a bad friend and tend to get lost in my day to day. ugh! there are only a few people in the world that i am completely comfortable being myself around, she is one of them. 

3. ^her son^ is autistic. he is the sweetest boy on the planet. tuesday night when i saw them he took my hand and said "you are my princess and he bowed." i replied "i have been waiting my whole life for my knight in shining armor to rescue me." and curtsied back. it blesses my heart so much that he has come so far. LOVE.

4. we are in the thick of football. i think i hate it and love it equally. ha! 

5. i realized the other day that this year was the last year i was going to have a child in elementary school. i cried. time flies ladies make sure to soak up every last second with your littles.

happy weekend friends

i hope it's first rate!

xxO

I LOVE fall no.2

apples... 

for decor

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for eating Mmmmm... 

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i'm totally making these this weekend

and maybe these

i think i'm slipping into a sugar coma just thinking about it.

and because i had to throw in some vintage

obviously 

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chevy trucks have a little piece of my heart all their own.

do you love apples too?

what's your favorite way to eat them?

i LOVE fall no.1

maybe i'm suffering from heat exhaustion, it's still 100* here. or maybe i have just fallen of my rocker because i cannot get fall off my brain. so i decided that i was going to devote my blog posts this week to my favorite things about fall. 

here goes...
no.1

flannel

i love it. it's so cozy and warm.
or maybe
 i just might have a weakness for it due to my scotness.

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now this has me excited for Christmas.

i want to play dress up too!

go check out this. it's an epic fall collage.

i cant wait to take family photos like this. i'm just waiting for the perfect cloudy day. 

please tell me you LOVE flannel too!

when i was little

we went out of town often. 

it went like this.

shasta lake

camp nelson ( it's in the sequoia national forest )

lake tahoe

repeat. 

each and every summer. 

by the time i got married and had kids of my own i could not, would not go to the mountains ever. i was over it. i declared myself a beach lover, and beach lovers only vacay at the beach. duh.

this week we snuck off for a quick over night trip to the beach. it was great, and i was glad to get out of the 109* heat. however, while lying on the beach trying to keep the sand off of my towel and listening to passers by have the most disgusting conversation ever, that i miss the mountains. 

on Shasta Lake my uncle had a houseboat, a ski boat, jet ski's and a pontoon. why he needed the pontoon i have no idea. actually i do. i think this song explains how he must have felt perfectly. somedays you just wanna float. i miss him. great. now i'm crying. ha! 

a few years in a row a black bear tried to climb aboard the house boat, and everytime my uncle would scream like a girl. you see the trash cans were on the bow of the boat. my aunt and uncle slept on the bow of the boat.  my cousin would bound down the ladder (he slept on top of the houseboat) run through the cabin and grab a the shot gun off the wall and pretend like he was going to do something. i prayed like heck that i didn't get eaten by the angry bear. by the time my cousin made it to the bow the bear was long gone. 

my brother and i would leave Oreo cookies on the bank for the deer. deer love Oreos i bet you didn't know that. they were fun to watch. so brave quenching their thirst only feet from our house boat. we saw snapping turtles, bald eagles and hawks. we played toe fish. oh you haven't heard of toe fish? it goes like this. it a two player game. first you need a gullible child and an adult who enjoys tormenting children. then when gullible child is floating and spalshing in the water having a grand ole time the tormenting adult swims close and shrills "the toe fish are going to get you" and simultaneously pinching your toes. i learned to swim with bent knees and feet sticking out of the water while keeping my toes curled. i am pretty sure that if you could get me in a lake now i would swim the same way.

my moms best friend had a cabin in sequoia. it was always such a fun trip. down by the camp nelson general store there were three little cottages that someone had decorated in story book themes. one belong to the three bears. one to little red riding hood and one to the three little pig. i was told that the recently that the cottages are still there. just beyond the houses was a meadow with a little creek running through the middle. the trees were covered in spanish moss. everything was so green. we would play there for hours and pretend that at any minute the big bad wolf was going to come get us. it was so perfect when a dog would howl while we were playing.  our imaginations ran wild.

my dads golfing buddy had a condo in tahoe more specifically in incline village, and he let us use it. tahoe is beautiful and still one of my favorite place in the world. we would go on boat tours to emerald cove. play on the shore and dare each other to get in the ice cold water. pass by ponderosa ranch (where bonanza was filmed) go to the mint in carson and try our luck at circus circus in reno. there was bowling alley across the street from the condo and a school around the corner. we were a soccer family, every evening my brother and i would kick around the ball in the school yard while my dad prepared dinner. 

i miss the quietness of the mountains and their majesty. the smell of the trees and the cool evening air. 

memories are good aren't they? 

the next chance we get i am for sure taking my boys to the mountains. they have hardly been. i feel like when they were little little i didn't get them out into nature to explore enough and be rough and tumble little guys. so today instead of feeling guilty over it this is my resolve...

it's never too late.

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current truths

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i'm a hustler babe...maybe?

last week an uninvited guest arrived.

this guest arrives every month like clock work.

each time the guest arrives she? brings unwelcome cravings and emotions.

salty. sweet. salty. sweet. and this time the need for a pepsi everyday came along too.

so what do i do in my jacked up emotional state?

i give in to the stupid cravings and go thru the drive thru everyday for a Pepsi or a COKE.

on wednesday we went to taco bell and i wish i could tell you that this song had just come on the radio and i was just about to change it because no sane person would allow their child to listen to it even if it was the clean version but it didn't. i deliberately downloaded it on iTunes and deliberately put it on my iPod and deliberately played it in my car....when the taco bell dude opened his window leans my way to hand me our drinks hears the song and says, "oh thats my sh*t"
my face went white um hello my kids are in the back seat dude
then it registered. i'm no better. what the heck. i'm letting my kids listen to this sh*t. OhEmGee!!!

on saturday pronounced saturdy. my oldest and i went to sonic. happy hour. happy check book.
am i right?
i pull up and sonic dude says, "ooh i like your scarf it makes you look pimp"

what the heck???
i'm not a pimp!
and i will have you know this time i was listening to ingrid michaelson.  def. not pimp music.

but
i started thinking...
am i a pimp. a hustler. i don't know. i was listening to rap and wearing a bandana on my head.
(i was thinking more rockabilly when i put the bandana on...) i surely don't want to fool you into thinking that i am this great amazing christian when behind closed door i am allowing my children to listen to rap. Uh No! i want to be the girl that is what you see is what you get inside and out. one who love the Lord like CRAZY who is thankful for his awesomeness and blessing and faithfulness each and every day so...
here's the thing
i want to glorify God in everything that i do and if i'm getting what feels to me like negative comments maybe i need to look inside and make a change. to be renewed. more literally Anakainosis. change sometimes is hard but oh so Good.

are you taking part in she reads truth?
 Living The Surrendered Life was ahhhmazing
these are the things that have smacked me in the face over the last week.

wed. july 4. day 14. if you can't say anything nice don't say anything AT ALL.

fri. july 6. day 16.  keep your heart right and treasure the word of GOD.

sun. july 8. day 18. guilt paralyzes. conviction motivates.

needless to say I AM CONVICTED.


i am seriously loving this study. a new one starts tomorrow (thursday). go here and join the party. it's worth it i promise.

but in the mean time i will blame my unwelcome guest for my destruction.
                                                ( fri june 29. day 9. DO NOT BLAME if you fall into sin OWN IT) 
                                                                                                                CONVICTION
                                                                                                               i really don't like that monthly guest.

i will not become paralyzed with guilt. nope. each day is new. and today is a good day to make some changes.

so bye-bye huslter. i don't want to outsmart people and make them think i am something i am not. i really do love Jesus and i want it to show in all of my actions. :)

thank you Jesus for enlightening me over the week. 

i needed it.

“Wherever your treasure is, 

there the desires of your heart will also be.”

Matthew 6:21


linking up here

a me date

isn't summer lovely?

kids are home. it's hot. you're a servant for days without rest. it's hot. you just got to the best part of your book and you hear  "MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM" gah! you put the book down and ask why "WHY can't you just get along with your brother?"

ok enough of that
this post isn't meant to be ho hum it's meant to be fun.

and for the record i really do love my kids to be home. 
it's just that sometimes being on all day everyday gets the best of me and i have a melt down.(just keeping it real)

on friday my husband was off. he was busy with something and each of the boys were busy with something else and i realized i was just waiting around for something to happen.

how silly of me. 

so i decided that before any bombs went off and let me tell you in a house full of males they are liable to i'd better leave.

i grabbed my key and purse and booked it out the door.

i went on a me date. 

i did the things that i wanted to do that nobody in this house enjoys doing but me.

thrift stores

antique stores 

just me 

alone with my thoughts

looking a beautiful treasures

no interruptions

it was heaven 

i saw this display and i really thought for a second that i was in heaven. everything was so dainty and sweet. oh so sweet. 

Oooooooh if i had a daughter...

i also had this because you know calories are free on a me date. 

i encourage everyone to go on a me date it's good for the soul.

it's all about balance. ha!

what do you for yourself in an 

attempt at keeping your sanity? 

linking up here

my birthday. 32 things...

who the eff i is 
oh you don't like that song?
speaking of songs why is it that the worst part of a song always get stuck in thee head???

32 words describing me...

my "eff's"
1 faithful as in Jesus Christ is my #1
2 fabulous
3 fierce
4 foxy (or so i've been told) ha! that was a joke!
5 friendly

i enlisted my family for the rest...
they are not eff words.

hubz 
6 charismatic
7 enthusiastic
8 outgoing
9 cheerful
10 ethical

big man (my 13 year old)
11 funny
12 cooler than other moms *
13 *weird (in a good way)
14 demanding
15 nice

tiny man
16 nice 
17 cuddly 
18 cool 
19 *weird (in a good way) 
20 singer (because you sing a lot)

*my boys made their lists separately, them thinking i'm weird in a good way totally makes my day!!!

mom
21 *beautiful 
22 strong 
23  intelligent 
24 wise (wisdom beyond her years)
25 *loving

dad
this is what the text i received from my dad says when i asked for 5 words describing me
valley girl (just kidding) 

~back story on this. every time my kids make fun of me / or try to sound like me they make me sound like a total valley girl. on monday we went to visit my dad for a belated father's day, {he was out of town all weekend. he went to the u.s. open. lucky dude}. anyway my kids were teasing me about it while we were there and now me being a valley girl has turned into this big thing. 

whatev!

his real list

26 kind
27 *loving
28 smart
29 *beautiful
30 important
~i think maybe he watched the help last night. ha!

*parents are supposed to tell their children they are beautiful and loving. even if they don't really think it's true. ha!
me again holla not to be confused with hola
31 funky fresh
& last but not least
32 fly like supa dupa fly. 

i'd like to say thank you to my family for playing my game. you all are the best and it's totally awesome that you all are willing to play my silly games. it was fun to see what you think of me.

also this is my all time favorite song this one is a close second

 i just thought you should know.

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on saturday i turn 32. when i was little i thought 32,
 rather anything over 17 was old. 

well let me just say i don't feel a day over 17.
 i may or may not act a day over 17 either. 

*maybe that's why when were in the grocery store the checker lady always asks me if my boys are my brothers...
hmmmm!

now that's some food for thought.

wishing you all a fabulous weekend.

strength

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i don't know about you but when i exercise i need near perfect circumstances.

i need loud music with a fast beat. but at the same time i need quiet, as in no one better be talking.

with the boys home all day everyday for the next 67 days (but whose counting) getting the things daone that I need to get is and has been a bit of a challenge. 

the other day i was on my treadmill, yep i'm one of those treadmill or bust kind of girls i had my music blasting and in comes my baby my 11 year old baby wanting to have a full on conversation. NO!

i thought to myself good lord son don't you see i am trying to exercise? i have headphones in my ears running at an 8 mile per hour pace. how in the heck do you expect me carry on a conversation with you. i'm going to fall off and break my neck 

dramatic i know

not that i don't want to talk to you, but if mommy doesn't get in a good exercise and run off the stress of you and brothers non stop bickering on only day 3 of summer vacation...life will not be pretty.

i stopped the treadmill took out my headphones and obliged him in his questioning. mind you he had no interest in talking to me before i started my workout. go figure thats they way it always goes.

i gave him some tasks to complete so that i could finish my workout. oh my that was a bad idea. he decided that if he was going to work then so was big brother and he started antagonizing him. next thing you know my boys are full on shrieking like girls and had each other in a headlock. how they both had an arm around the others neck is still beyond me.  so for the second time in my 30 minute run i had to stop the treadmill. 

i may have flipped my lid a little bit, and said excuse me gentlemen 

they hate when i call them gentlemen because i sound sarcastic. NO REALLY???!!!

  your father and i are good to you and respectful of you both, and we expect the same respect from you period. now i am going to get back on the treadmill and finish my workout and the two of you are going to go sit down on the couch and read until i am done. if you are not sitting on the couch when i get off you will be in your room for the rest of the day. ok?! thanks!!

guess what 3 more times i had to stop the treadmill. THREE. 

worst workout ever.

i saw the above sign today and i thought to myself geez this is so true. 

i really do love when my boys are on vacation, summer is my favorite we get to be lazy with a relaxed schedule and i do have the strength to get throughout the rough days. and if i don't have the strength i can rest easier because i know that if i call on the Lord each morning and through out the day HE will give it to me.

"The Lord is my strength, my shield. 

My heart was sure of him,

I have been helped and my heart exults, 

with my song I give him thanks."

Psalm 28:7

i sure am thankful for HIS Mercy and Grace and for MY strength.