Weee, she's 3!!! (cont)

Here is Sage's cake. We switched back/forth between Blue and Magenta, or as Sage calls her--"Bageta." As you can see, pink was the deciding factor.
Happy Birthday to YOU! Look how sweet she is!
This was the first year that she blew out her own candles, and she really blew them out.
One left!
With the added focus that only come from sticking your tongue out, she managed to extinguish all the flames.
And she was quite proud of herself...
As she should have been.
My baby's not a baby anymore.
Then there was a lot of balloon fun going on in the family room. Isacah is planning for when Harrison and Sage leave. THEN she will have the balloons all to herself. She did manage to do that later.
And here we go!
Look at that smile in the middle of the chaos...haha, I love it.
I love their faces in this one. They have such a good time together.

Isacah is making a hot meal for when they use up all their strength.
The kids thought it would be really fun to get IN the gift bag. Turns out, they were correct.
Isacah learned how to blow the party favor out. Pretty impressive!
Then the guys thought we should break out the hookah. You know, because for every 3 year old's birthday party, hookahs are always involved. As soon as the smoke began to swirl, Harrison comes in and informs us: "Smoking is bad for you. It will kill you....and stuff."
Of course, as far as I go, I have so much love, that even my smoke comes out in the form of a heart. Check that out. I'm not even kidding.
Not here, but you DID see it. You cannot deny that.
Then Chrissie and I mistakenly went upstairs, and left the guys with the camera. Pictures like the ones below follow.

If you only really knew how many of these were on there, you would be amazed.
With a touch of variation.
At the end of it all though, I think the birthday girl had a great time. My girl. :)

Always Ready

to have her picture taken...and I mean ALWAYS. This is her pose...you'll see what I mean.


Well not QUITE in this one, but she would have.

Saturdays are Daddy Days

Travis took Sage to the park on Saturday, and these are by far some of my favorite pictures ever. That camera is coming in handy! I guess I'm partial to Sage somewhat, but I just think without any of that partiality, that she is the most beautiful child!


Isn't that sky amazing? God's handiwork.
Look at that grin.
one of my FAVORITES!


"What is UP with the mirror today?!"
Love this one. Light at the end of the tunnel.
Me and my shadow!
Fly away with me!

Stop and think

It's Friday and a beeaautiful, crisp, cool day--my favorite kind of day. For those of you that don't know, I'm on myspace, and if you're not, you should be too. :) But they have a status update option on there where you can put "Julie _________" whatever you choose. Julie is at home, Julie is awesome, Julie can't find her keys, Julie is the hottest girl around...facts like those.

Anyway, with all that fear over that cyst, I had gotten several words and scripture that comforted me. I was on myspace one day, and I saw a girl online that goes to my church with a status that said "'Molly' is worried about her biopsy." Feeling prompted, I emailed her and shared with her my experiences and some things I had found about healing and peace. This was before I knew that knot was just a cyst. Anyway, she was really sweet and said she'd think of me too. The next day, I told her that it was, indeed, okay and how relieved I was and asked how she was. As it turned out, her biopsy came back as thyroid cancer. She is 28. She said that she was shocked and upset, but she knew that the Lord would take care of her. I, in turn, agree with her.

I didn't just forget and go on though. I lay awake that night thinking of her. It made me thankful for my life. It made me love God's faithfulness towards me and trust His towards 'Molly.' So the next time you're pissed at traffic, you hate the neighbors or that lady that cut you off in the grocery line, the kids are driving you nuts....stop and remember that someone just had their life stopped in its tracks. I'm not saying that it's not okay to have those things get on your nerves because they do. Just remember that someone would love for that to be the most of their concerns.

An Uneventful Day

is sometimes the best day. Not that I can say that the day is over seeing that it's not even noon, but I am thankful for the feeling of lethargy right now. That may seem weird to say, but I was on panic attack edge for a week straight, so to feel mellow is reeeal good. I found a small bump on my hip on New Year's Eve, and it freaked me out. I really believe it was spiritual--New Year's Eve--to start the new year with fear. I don't know if you noticed, but there has been a change in my tune before I found that--a transformation.

I made a dr's appointment for the day after New Year's. Fighting between my faith to know the Lord was taking care of me and the fear that wouldn't leave was not fun. Faith always wins though. So anyway, to get in the dr's office that day, I had to see an intern, who was, let me say, CRAZY. If I hadn't been half sick with nerves, I would have laughed. I actually did laugh/cry later. After trying to talk about my life history and possibly diagnose something else, he goes to get help. MY doctor came in, and he too, "had never really seen anything like it." Fear escalates.

However, in my heart, I knew that it was okay. Not just "no matter what," it's okay, but OKAY. Am I making sense? I did make an appointment with a surgeon so that they could take it out, biopsy, whatever. Anyway, the surgeon was yesterday, and HE walked in and out in less than 5 minutes saying, "Honey, that's a cyst, a harmless blood clot that formed where you hit it (which I do often). It's perfectly fine. I promise you that it's nothing to worry about. Leave it alone or it will get bigger. I'd do the same thing if it were me or my wife." Relief. Praise. Sing. Dance. Live! :)

He said like dis right heah.

A day in the life...

of us! Below is one of my favorite pictures of Mayer. Why, you ask? Because he's outside where he belongs. Look at him. Isn't that sweet? Sweet dog. He loves it out there.
This is where Mayer thinks he belongs--in my lap. He's over half of my weight, but he's unaware of that. He tries to run and jump onto my lap. I know it appears that I like him with all the recent pictures of the two of us. Don't be fooled. I tolerate him--BIG difference. He amuses me on occasion too.
Boo boo deep in...my guess is Rudolph or Caillou. We like Caillou because he encourages Sage to eat good food so she'll be big and strong. It works! Look at "-cess," PRINCESS, that is. And she is.
This is what my house normally looks like. Those are BOTTLE liners that used to be sterile. Now they are drinks for "her kids." She has a class of kids, in case you didn't know. They tend to be pretty needy too.
Look at the culprit.

That's My King

If you go to Word Alive, you can almost quote this. It's worth quoting though. I love it.

Candyland: More than child's play

Sage got Candyland for Christmas, and she does enjoy it...but not as much as Travis and me. We (and I mean HE and I) played game after game last night because I WON the first time, and he couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, Sage was running around playing her own game. Of course, I DID cheat the first time because I NEVER win. I saw he was going to get a card that would make it almost impossible to beat him, so I stuck it further down in the deck when he wasn't looking. I won that round and told him, so he said, "We're going to have our own game now." Ha, it is kind of funny looking back. I have cheated SEVERAL different rounds, and that was the only time it did me any good. So thank you, Grandmother, for the great gift for Sage. We...I mean SHE...is really enjoying it.

Sweet, sweet, SWEET

When Sage woke up from her nap, I went into her room to get her. She had been up for a few minutes playing quietly in her bed. When I opened the door, she said, "You're exactly what I needed." Isn't that the sweetest child ever? She's exactly what I needed.

The Cow and Eggs

You want random? Oh I've got random. I took these pictures of Mayer and me. I am standing up, leaning in a bit as you tend to do (for whatever reason) when you take a pic with another. Note: I am 5'7. Mayer is standing up on his hind legs with me. You may want to reread that. He's huge. He's going to weigh as much as I do soon.

His face makes me laugh here.
His head is as big as mine too. That's big. ;)

I got Travis this omelette pan for Christmas, and he and Sage have been cooking with it. Sage made her own omelette by mixing in what she wanted, and she was very proud of herself as she reaped the benefits by eating it.

Yum.
Breakfast with Poppa.

All The Way

I tend to be an extremist. All the laundry is done or none of it is done. The house is clean or the house is a wreck. I look like I just got out of bed or I look like I'm going to the club. I'm not sure why this is, but in my faith, it can get pretty serious. I felt, for a time in my life, that I was too "religious," that I didn't know how to be free. So I expressed that in basically doing what I wanted. Some of these things weren't bad, but it wasn't the "things" that I was doing but more what/who I was becoming.

I didn't really have this revolution (at least that I was aware of), but I'm not doing it anymore. I know that the Lord has spared me and has had more grace on me than I could ever even realize. I don't even know what happened, but I've just decided to go all the way for Him. I know He's been drawing me for quite some time, but something in me just finally responded! And I don't know if Travis realizes it, but I feel like I'm NICE. Nice isn't the key, and I know that I'm not a saint, but I feel kindness in me that isn't "me." Ahem, WASN'T.

I had been, and when I say HAD, being like the day before yesterday and LONG before that, just a really mean person. As I said in a previous post, I just had no grace for anyone or anything. I was mean to pretty much everyone all the time, and you better not have gotten in my way or I'd let you have it. I just feel...love. I feel purpose. We have this (or at least I did) this notion that God is sitting on a cloud with a lightning bolt ready to kill us the first mistake we make. It's as if He's WAITING on us to mess up. This is by far from the truth. God wants more than anything for us to prosper and live WELL--here on this earth! Furthermore, if God judged us, we'd all be dead. The fact is that God judged Jesus Christ on the cross for every mistake we'd make. That's it.

So I guess I want to encourage anyone who feels like they want to change, but they just can't--you are 100% correct. YOU can't change. I'd TRY to be nice, and it STILL didn't work. (By the way, you're not GOING to be nice all the time--I know this.) I had gotten way too comfortable.

We are far too familiar with a God we barely know.

He is gracious enough and loves us enough that He is constantly drawing and pushing us towards where we need to be. You will get there. We all will. He's that good.