Thrive

Three weeks ago, our church launched a 21 day "Thrive Challenge" to pray, fast and give. It wasn't a "no food at all" fast but a Daniel fast, which is basically fruits, vegetables, whole grains and water. This SOUNDS easy to do when you think of the alternative of not eating. If you're thinking that, I challenge YOU to go for it. You don't even have to do 3 weeks, just go for a few days. See how you feel when you have to pass on the bread, sweets, chicken, coke... It was very challenging at times but also very liberating, and I think everyone that participated came out a lot better for it. I know that I did. I look forward to the days ahead when I can see actual things that I sowed become manifested.

I will say (though I knew this already) that buying only produce is WAAAY more expensive than buying, say...pizza.

Hummus was a HUGE staple for me.

Me, Steve and Jen in our famous Thrive shirts. :)

Motherly Fail

I'm so ashamed that I've done this, but you just DON'T understand! You don't know what it's like! I feel like I'm in an AA meeting making excuses for my problem. ;) Seriously, Jaggar is one busy boy. For example, when we went to Chuck E Cheese, I took him to the bathroom to change him. When I was washing my hands, he was immediately around the corner, out the door (the big, heavy pull door, by the way), and back into play land--laughing the whole way. I never had a child like him. Sage was and still is glued to me half the time. So, I did it: I bought the dreaded "leash for the child." He actually LOVED it...while it was in the box. I haven't actually brought myself to use it in public--yet. We tried it on him, and you can see that he was less than thrilled. That, of course, was probably because SAGE thought that she'd get to drag him around like a puppy. I'll let you know how it goes in the real world.

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One Last Kentucky Event: Egg Hunt

Before I arrived in Kentucky, my mom had asked what time I needed to leave on Saturday because the nursing home my papa is in was having an Easter Egg hunt. I didn't have a particular time that I needed to leave, and the egg hunt was at 10 am anyway, so it was perfect. It was really nice to see my papa, who has ALWAYS loved little kids. My kids and my cousin's two kids were there, so all of his great grandchildren were there. My sweet cousin, Amber, came too just to help and watch the kids. It was really, really cold and rainy that day, so they hid the eggs inside. They were EVERYWHERE and stuffed full of candy. The nursing home really put a lot of effort in that, and it was so sweet.

My papa and I

THIS one had never hunted eggs before, but apparently, it's a trait children are born with. The moment he that walked in, he started putting the eggs in his basket and saying, "BALL!". AND then he discovered they opened and had candy in them...oh it was more than he could handle to have to WAIT to officially start "hunting."

It was too difficult to take pictures while they were finding eggs, so I just took a picture of the aftermath. Jaggar was putting Reese Cups in his mouth with the wrapper still on them and saying, "Choc!".

Sage and Mikayla

The whole clan, minus my aunt, Robin. Sage, Mikayla, Papa, Mema, Me, Jaggar, Mom, Amber, Lindsay (cousin) and Tyler

And THEN the Easter Bunny showed up. I don't know WHAT it is about him that my kids are obsessed over, but they LOVE him. When we went to all of those malls the other day, they saw EVERY SINGLE BUNNY and hugged each one. Multiple times. (Side note: I think the Easter bunny is stupid. I love Santa. A 6' bunny? Let's get real and not ruin other things with this, but whatever. I've never really encouraged it, but if they want to love it, so be it.) See Jaggar hugging him? That's all he would do.

Mikayla throwing him/her a hi-five. Funny.

Mema with her great grandchildren

Sweet. Papa loves babies. The nursing home staff thought Jaggar looked like my papa. They also said they were going to start fixing his hair like Jaggar's. :) We had a really nice time here right before we hit the road.

Perfect End to a Perfect Day

The biggest deal for me in coming to Louisville this week was to see this special lady. I've mentioned her several times in this blog, and today was the first day that I've been able to see Linda since her stroke in January. There have been many moments of uncertainty throughout this, but she nor her faith have wavered. I honestly thought that I'd be slightly upset to see her in person because it's not a picture or a video from a phone, but I have to say...I was PLEASANTLY surprised and overjoyed. This woman, who couldn't even hold her head up or SIT UP just a few weeks ago, stood up out of her chair and walked to the kitchen and back to her chair without any help (other than Carrie just walking beside her just in case, but that's not help). A-MA-ZING. And the leg that she couldn't move at ALL, she moved easily. If you don't believe in the power of faith and prayer, then you need to get to know her. She cried when she saw Sage as she thanked her for Sage's prayers because she said that they were why she was where she is at in her recovery.

I wish you could have seen her (I saw pictures and videos) in ICU and then see this! She looks so amazing.

BJ hopped in one of the MANY shots we took, thus, my facial expression. :) By the way, BJ and his wife, Carrie (Linda's daughter), are who I moved to Alabama with. You can love them or hate them for that, haha.

Sage and Emma Catherine were INSTANT friends.

And CONNER was my first baby. He was only 17 months old when I first moved there to help take care of him. He still calls me Ju-Ju. Jaggar loved everyone and hugged EVERY person (all 8 of them) in the room before we left.

Sage hugging Linda goodbye. So precious. Seeing her (and the whole family--I lived with the Davises for two years!) was exactly what I needed. We had a wonderful visit, and this entire day was brighter than the very ugly days of sickness we had at the beginning of this week.

Then on the way out, Mom pointed out the (in)famous Homemade Ice cream and Pie Kitchen. Doesn't that just SOUND sinful? Well, Sage heard us, so she wanted to go. I didn't mind. Here they are eating their treats...Jaggar was too engrossed in that cookie.

Here's my MOM'S dessert: dutch apple pie with caramel on top. She said that it was amazing.

A view of some of the treats.

Chuck E Cheese

Today we were able to do one of our last things on our list, in spite of all the of the sickness. CHUCK. E. CHEESE. Oh yes, every kid's dream and every parent's nightmare. But really, today turned out to be awesome. I don't mind it at ALL if there aren't 5 billion kids there, and if you go when other kids are in school (like they were today), it's great. Sage hadn't been there in so long that when I told her there was a surprise, she couldn't even think of it. She used to call it Chucky Ducks, and it's been years since she's been because this was Jaggar's first visit. HE loved it. It was so peaceful and fun to watch them do it all. They had so much fun.

Jaggar had way too much to take in.

THIS was the cutest thing: the Ken-Chuck-E Derby. :) It was a horse racing simulator, and that horse totally threw them around. We tried to get Sage to ride this when she was a baby, and she refused. Jaggar, on the other hand, was all for it and loved every second. Obviously, years later, Sage did, too. You can see them riding it here. (Please ignore the redneck in the background that ruined two of my videos by yelling at her child. "MAAASON. MAAAASON." Ann-oy-ing.)

This was Jaggar's FAVORITE! When we were down to just a few tokens, I divided them evenly between each child. Jaggar's choice was to ride this repeatedly. Not because it was SO fun, but because he loved the music. He would get mad when the ride ended and would only stop fussing and dance when the music came back on, which was a few seconds into the ride. HILARIOUS. Watch him here.

Time for the Chuck E Cheese show! He loved it!

Dancing in front of the camera. Jaggar is playing with the actual camera.

Fascinated

See that pile of tickets coming out? That's because I am the ski ball champion. I smoked anyone and everyone: adults and children alike. And I know that because I looked at the scores of everyone around me, and let's just say that they need some work to roll with me. At the end of the day, we had 248 tickets.

This was how lunch was for them: take a bite, go play, take a bite, go play. I guess that it's cruel and unusual punishment to have to SIT at Chuck E Cheese.

They loved getting under here. Jaggar is back behind her, looking out the window and watching it rain.

And look who came out while we were eating! I never would have thought Chuck E Cheese would actually be there on a weekday without a birthday party, but he sure was. And he had a sign that said, "Follow me for free tickets." He danced with them, and you can see that here. Then he threw some tickets out for the kids and took pictures with them. So great.

Zoo Day

We had a well house again today, so we RAN at the chance to go to the zoo. Mom and I had talked and knew we wanted to go there. Louisville has a great zoo, and spring is one of the best times to go. We picked up my cousin's daughter, Mikayla, so that Sage could see her since they love to play together. We spent many hours there and took our time walking through. The kids, JAGGAR especially, loved it. It was awesome to see his expressions. I didn't think about how at home that he loves to just stare at the dogs out the window, so this was like AMAZING to him. There are a LOT of pictures, but this is something we don't get to do every day, so I was pretty indulgent in taking them. Hope ya don't mind. :)

This is right when you enter: a huge ball covered in water. You can imagine what happened from there. Yep, Sage cupped it in her hands to her mouth...ONCE after I was like "NO!!!" ha, And then Jaggar looked like he had gone swimming.

Playing on the turtle

This was one of the first "bigger" animals that we saw: the orangutan. Jaggar was like, "wow.." in a whisper just like he did whenever he saw Christmas lights. This one was asleep when another walked over to him/her (?) and started playing with its hair. So funny.

Watching another orangutan play...or try to escape.

The trio...it was a workout keeping up with these 3. Between the girls trying to get too far ahead, Jaggar trying to go BACK to where we had been, and Mikayla screaming (like complete meltdown) over any and every bee, we had our hands full, but we had a great time.

The white alligator: King Louie

I'm so sad that I didn't get to go in here: the lorikeet landing. But I'm thrilled that mom took both kids...or Sage (Jaggar was less than impressed, which I'll explain below). Mikayla wanted to play on the playground, so I took her there. Sage was in awe.

I'm pretty sure this is mid-swing from Jaggar to the bird. Mom said he knocked one down....to the ground. I'm sure the trainers would be glad to see that. One landed on Sage's head, and Mom said it totally freaked him out. He was screaming, and even later (and now when we talk about it), he says, "Hurt." Cracks me up.

Feeding nectar to the bird. Look at her face.

Jaggar looking at the jaguar, which he was sure was a tiger.

Break time. I think I look as tired as I felt. There were some hills there that got the best of me.

ALWAYS my favorite: the sea lions. I'm sad that we were just a few days short of the grand opening of the new polar bear exhibit: Glacier Run. We did get to see one on the ledge, who appeared to be dancing. I asked the trainer why he was doing that, and she said it was just a repetitive behavior/tick that was "comfortable to him." I refrained from saying, "So it has tourettes?" but I thought it. It was cute. Check out the seals showing off for their audience.

So pretty

The actual tiger

Nonni and the girls

One of the gorillas. I always think of the movie, Congo, whenever I see this.

Cute

Zebras

Clearly, we took pictures on basically every statue that was there.

Last but not least...
We had SUCH a great day. If I lived in Louisville, I would most DEFINITELY be a member of this zoo.