Kenzie starting solid food

We attempted rice cereal for the first time yesterday

My heart is so full!!!

Although I won't say it's been easy, I have clung to God in desperation and hope that he would deliver us from our valley and unite our home. Tonight he did! Here are some pictures that captures all our joy today.

We anticipate a period of adjustment and we loathe having to leave but know she is in great hands while we are at work. I can't believe I get to spend my whole weekend with my heart, my daughter, my love!

Have you ever been robbed?

Has anyone ever stolen something from you? Obviously you weren't expecting it or it would have been more like borrowing. Has anyone ever come into your home and taken something that could never be replaced by any amount of money, time, new models, gifts, etc? What do you do?

I've been robbed. Something that can never be replaced was taken from me. There is a helplessness associated with something being taken compared to just losing something. When you lose something you can retrace your steps, figure out how to get it back, prevent the chances of losing it again. When your life is invaded and something is stolen, there is no planning, no preparation.

Did the person who robbed you call you up and say, "hey, I have what I took from you and would like to meet to discuss what you can do to earn it back?" Have you ever stood across the fence and watched the robber dangle your stolen belonging in front of you and let you see it to remember that it should be yours but continue to withhold the item?

Did you have to take classes and endure observations and scrutiny by the robber and all his buddies so that they could see if they thought you deserved to have what they took even though you had never done anything to deserve to be robbed in the first place?

Through this whole ordeal I have rarely sat and threw myself a pity party and I hope this will be the last time I do but I couldn't figure out how to relate this trial to something that other people might connect with. It's not like death...I've lost a close family member. It's not like losing a job, it's not like losing a relationship (although I've never experienced divorce or death of a spouse). It's not like anything else I've experienced. I can honestly pray that no one I know ever goes through it themselves.

I pray you are never robbed.

New pics of my little girl

We just celebrated Kenzie's 5 month birthday (kind of). We just took these and I edited them with my new Iphone app called Snapseed (so awesome).

I can't offer a lot of detail but I can say that she is just getting so big! Most of her hair fell out and I think it might be growing back in red. She's such a little doll though and seems to look exactly like whichever parent is hold her (although I think she is totally Mike).

Stay tuned for more...

100 Things to do before I Die

Academics/Career:

1. Be a principal
2. Be either a superintendent/district administrator
3. sing/speak at a public event
4. Be a grade level team leader
5. Get my master's degree
6. Get a doctorate degree
7. Teach a college class 
8. Start my own business/support my husband starting a business

Family:

1. take my daughter to get a pedicure
2. Make baby books every two months for the first year of my children(s)' lives.
3. attend a mother/daughter sleepover
4. go to grandparent's day
5. have ALL my children and grandchildren come home for Christmas
6. french braid my daughter's hair 
7. Be a mother-of-the-bride
8. watch Mike walk our daughter down the aisle
9. hold my baby in my home in her Aunt's blanket
10. offer my engagement/wedding rings to my grandson/granddaughter
11. serve on a Tres Dias weekend with my husband
12. speak to my grandfather about his experience in the Holocaust
13. Dedicate Kenzie at church 
14. Adopt a baby with down syndrome

Personal

1. weigh less than 140 lbs
2. Have no need for contacts or glasses
3. come up with 100 items for my list
4. VBAC
5. Rectora/Head Cha
6. Own a black pug
7. Own a MAC/Ipad
8. get married
9. have a baby
10. buy a home
11. see someone accept Christ
12. become a member of my church
13. Host a bible study at my home
14. Write and publish a children's book
15. Write and publish a novel
16. Complete a pull up
17. Do a hanging sit up

Travel/World Experiences: 

1. Cruise to Alaska
2. Live in England for a year
3. Take the Lord of the Rings tour of "the Shire" in New Zealand
4. See my husband baptized in the Jordan River 
5. Meet a president
6. Go on the Disneyland Cruise
7. vow renewal in the church Mike's parents were married in
8. Visit the tribes of my Native American heritage
9. Live in a "Stars Hollow" town

DIY/Activities:

1. Collect all the Cinderella stores from around the world
2. Have an entire room in my home with floor to ceiling libraries
3. Own all the Caldecott winning books
4. take a drifting class
5. Make the hair bows for my daughter's sport's team (volleyball, cheer etc)
6. learn to hip hop dance
7. solve the rubic's cube in under 4 minutes
8. Read all of Jane Austen's book
9. Go to the midnight release of the final Breaking Dawn movie
10. Complete a parallel study of the Gospels
11. Take a ride on the light rail
12. learn to use a sewing machine 
13. trash the dress in water
14. relearn and "speak' sign language fluently
15. Shoot a gun
16. Learn to ride a sport bike
17. Learn how to do a fish tail braid

Finances:

1. Eliminate all debt
2. Pay off all student loans
3. Learn how to invest 

Total: 68
Completed: 3

When your tears fall

I've had questions, without answers
I've known sorrow, I have known pain
But there's one thing, that I'll cling to
You are faithful, Jesus You're true

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call You healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

In the lone hour of my sorrow
Through the darkest night of my soul
You surround me and sustain me
My defender, forevermore

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call You healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

And I will praise You, I will praise You
When the tears fall, still I will sing to You
And I will praise You, Jesus praise You
Through the suffering still I will sing

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call You healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart

Oh yes, You are good to me
You've always been good to me
So trustworthy

When hope is lost, I'll call You Saviour
When pain surrounds, I'll call You healer
When silence falls, You'll be the song within my heart
And I will praise You, and I will praise You
When the tears fall, still I will sing to You
(I will sing to You) I will praise You,
Jesus praise You through the suffering
Still I will sing

How faithful and true
Sustain me through and through
You are hope and truth
You're my spring of living water
You're my spring of living water

In the lone hour of my sorrow

Like a well watered garden
Who springs never fail
Faithful and truth
Like a well watered garden
Like a spring that never fails
You're my spring and never fails

Did you Know?

1. Silence can be deafening- have you ever relied on a certain noise so much that without it you felt like you had gone deaf and were therefore lacking one of your senses and consequently your ability to fully connect to the world? I remember after 911, some of the residents on my floor in my dorm were aviator majors and said that not hearing the planes fly overhead was more traumatic than the knowledge of what had just happened. That's how I feel. For the first couple days I could swear that I still heard that sound but I didn't. I would give anything to hear it.

2. Idle hands something something something- I don't know the actual quote but I do that keeping busy is a bandaid and distraction that I happily welcome. I can't say it's easy, that I enjoy it. I can say that keeping your mind and hands busy offers some avenue for pretending that everything is okay.

3. You can miss having your clothes constantly dirty- there are just certain messes that you grow accustomed to and you learn to appreciate and adore. I wish I needed my laundry detergent more than I do right now.

4. A clean house is not always what I want most- why is there so much room in my home for stuff right now?

5. Things are not easy as breathing- because sometimes breathing isn't easy.

6. All things can be used for Good for those who know Him- the end does not justify the means but the means can provide lessons, comfort, support, and growth until the end comes.