You're Gonna Miss this..

Man, what a magical time of the year if you have kids.. Is it insanity and dang near impossible to keep the perspective on Jesus? Well sure.. but its also magic.. I feel like the months from May to Now have just FLOWN by..and I'm waking up and its 3 days until Christmas!

The girls are so much fun.. they love everything Christmas.. I look at my other friends who have older kids and know they are missing this age.. 4.. 3 was fun too, but 4 has been a lot of fun with the girls because they are starting to 'get it'.. and you can still totally threaten them with Eliza the Christmas Elf and Santa! So.. winning.. But this year they have just seemed to take it all in, and really love it.. They giggle with Glee when they see Awesome Christmas lights.. or really anyone who made the tiniest bit of effort on lights, lol.. They watch Christmas movies over and over.. And they even ask to watch the old classic versions of Frosty, Rudolph and the Grinch.. because their little minds have no idea what CGI is.. or High Def.. or all the new technology that makes Cartoons nowadays.. they are just as happy with the weird old Snow Monster and Rudolph with his stoic leg movements.. They sing Christmas music so loud and love it! Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is coming to town, Jingle bells..and I'm still trying to get them to love the Il Divo Christmas Collection and Clay Aiken's version of "Mary Did you know".. We may have to save those for next year..

Its really been fun so far.. but with all the Commercialism of Christmas these days.. and so many trying to leave Jesus OUT of Christmas.. Jordan and I have been trying to fit him back IN.. I realize they are only 4.. but each day on the way to school we talk about the Gift that Jesus gave us by coming to the world as a baby.. They love The Christmas Story so we take time to tell it (and yes, they do still think their Donkey, Kris, is THE donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem) I somehow think finding out that part is not real might be worse than finding out about Santa! We have been rehearsing how we say "thank you" for gifts that we didn't always ask for.. and how we should always be Grateful for something someone gets us because they thought enough of us to get us a gift.. But man.. It feels like a daunting responsibility.. to teach your kids to be Thankful.. Grateful.. and Peaceful. Marty Preached about Peace last Sunday and it was a great message.. a Message that no matter what happens over the stressful Holiday season we can feel Peace because Jesus has overcome the world.. But its still hard.

We have 4 Christmas's to go to.. It makes our life hectic trying to get to everyone's house on time.. make everyone happy.. haul the girls around.. haul the dogs around.. Get everyone's hair fixed, packages wrapped, food cooked.. All while reminding the girls that we are NOT going to ask about opening Presents 6542 times, and we are NOT going to tattle on each other every 5 minutes.. Its stressful. Its easy to lose perspective and forget the Reason for the Season.. Its easy to lose your peace.. and your mind when the girls are trying to slap each other in the back seat.. Its hard realizing at some point this holiday season someone is probably going to be upset about something.. But.. We have to keep our Peace.. We have to keep our perspective.. Especially this time of year. I just read an amazing blog from my awesome friend Karen that talks about how easy it is to let Satan steal your Joy and Peace..(Read Karen's Blog because its awesome, so click here)  and its so true.. I'll admit this morning when that person in the Audi rode my car bumper all the way to work.. or when I ordered all my groceries online to avoid the crowd.. and then realized they forgot the dates for the date roll.. it was tempting to let my Peace be stolen.. But if I look at the big Picture, man, I'm so blessed. So Very blessed.. like beyond anything I deserve..

This has been an Amazing year. I love my Husband and the fact that he puts up with me telling Puns to MYSELF and then also laughing at MYSELF until I can't breathe.. The girls have grown and said some of the funniest things ever to me.. and each day we see more and more of their awesome little personalities. My family has been healthy and happy. We've had so much fun at the farm this year with getting chickens, riding 4 wheelers.. playing with Cows..  Jordan and I have good jobs that help us provide for our family. I love my bosses and my co-workers.. I LOVE my Minivan.. Yup, I said it.. I freakin love that minivan..I found Orange Theory Fitness and my heart and my waistline are healthier.. I also made some amazing friendships there that I have really enjoyed this year. I love my church.. the blessings I get from that place are incredible.. I love my Small Group and all the people who give me perspective, and a kick in the butt when I need it.. I love the girls Pre-K Teacher, Mr. Daniel, who is by-far one of the most patient men I've ever know.. (he has to be right?) I love my radio gig.. Even though its part time, its still allowed me to be back doing something I love and that is a Great Blessing. Its not hard for you to look around and see your blessings. I realize sometimes its harder to see them because something else is happening that makes you forget them.. but remember.. Have Peace.

I'm going to wake-up in 4 days and Christmas with my twins is going to be over. I'm never going to get that time back with them. Its a once in a life-time deal.. So even when they are being annoying.. when your family is being annoying.. when your friends are being annoying.. You have to remember.. that moment is fleeting and once its gone.. its gone.. I know there's going to be a time when my kids are not as excited about Christmas.. or ME for that matter, so we have to celebrate these little nuggets they give us! Its an awesome thing that God Gave us for Christmas, so Celebrate it, and Enjoy his Peace this Holiday Season! Merry Christmas!

Brand Spankin New Year!

Well Welcome to a new year!! Its so weird to think that last year at this time I was big pregnant.. and you might be saying "Were you really that Big?".. Yes, with twins you pretty well blow up. I blew up when I was about 18 weeks pregnant.. I remember thinking last year at this time, "Holy Wow. I'm going to have two babies this year!" and how that blew my mind.. Well who am I kidding, it STILL blows my mind! Its just unreal that I was able to create two, Live, Humans!! God truly made the human body amazing.. especially the WOMEN's.. Because lets be honest, the part that the men contribute is the fun part.. not the break your back, bloated, painful, ruiney part.. Sorry guys.. So this year its a whole new time.. The girls will be turning ONE on May 25th. I can't believe they are 7 months old..Well yes I can.. because some of that went REALLY slow..but the past few months have went pretty fast. They are so fun and cute now. They make me laugh every single day by doing something ridiculous. Right now Crosslee is taking off..she Crawls backwards, rolls everywhere, and pulls up on stuff. I'm wondering if she is going to skip crawling and just go straight to walking. She seems to want to do that. I cannot imagine. I'm not ready for two Mobile babies!!

LL (Londyn Lucille) seems to pick up new things each day that are funny. Like right now she does weird things with her hands. She makes rolling motions with her fingers like "come here to me" and she does this funny laugh where she goes huhh uhhh uhh uuu.. Its bizarre, but hilarious. I can honestly say they are both the best babies. They sit and play by themselves without crying. They have started to enjoy each other and laughing at one another. Its so cool to watch them interact and know that they will always have each other. Twins is a very special bond that only they will have.. Speaking of Twins, I've met so many cool twin moms from Facebook.. we are planning a meetup in June. I feel like I know these women like my best friends, so it will be so fun to get to meet them and their babies in real life! More details to come on that.. So I know you are just dying to know what I did on New Years Eve right?!?!... Yeah, I was in bed by 9pm.. Lol. I know, I suck, but man these days after I work all day and come home to play with the babies and dog babes, I'm spent...MJ stayed up till Midnight and came in and gave me a kiss, and that was the end of that. Non eventful. I could try and blame my lameness on the girls, but I was lame BEFORE I had babies, so Its on me. Sorry. Lame.

In other news, we finally bought a new refrigerator.. After having one that made our butter taste like metal for the past 4 years, we threw caution to the wind and got a fancy one.. Its not that Fancy, but it does have a third drawer for MJ's Pop..He was super excited about this..I only care about having ice water, so I'm good to go with that. It looks awesome though, and really makes our kitchen look nice..

Job is still going great.. Girls are doing well..Life is good. We started up our small group again last night at Church, and I can't tell you what a blessing our small group is.. Its so nice to have a group of people to just talk to, pray for you, and know what you are going through. We love every couple in there, and I'm so thankful for them. Right now one of the things of doing is 30 days of gratitude for our spouses. Every day you say/do something nice for your husband/wife. I think this is an awesome way to keep some perspective in your marriage..with work, and babies, and life, its easy to get lost in other things other than each other, and I'm so excited to have a strong, solid, awesome marriage for not only MJ and I, but for our girls. I want to be those old people that hold hands on their way into church and talk about our keys to staying married. I love that.

Wrappin' Presents!

Merry Christmas everyone! We went on a therapy visit last week, and this week... Payslee had on her Christmas dresses, and was looking sassy.. Sawyer was just wearing his lovely fur coat. .We've decided that Sawyer is a Yeti.. For anyone who has watched "Rise of the Guardians" You will notice a similarity between my shih-tzu, and the Yeti's in Santa's Workshop:

So now I tell Sawyer he is a Yeti that is living in my house.. He's such a sweet boy. They had a good time at their visits.. Last week we went to Ranchwood Nursing Center, and Last night we went to The Fountains Assisted Living. Sawyer loves to ride on the people's walkers..the kind that have the little seats where they can sit down. We have a favorite lady there named "Johnny".. Both Saw and Payslee just wait for Johnny to come in from eating, and then she will come and sit on the couch, and they will jump up there and love on her.. Then Sawyer rests on her walker, lol..There's also another guy who is blind named Glenn.. He LIVES for the visits with Fudge, Payslee & Sawyer.. Fudge is the Chocolate lab that goes with my babes to visit.. Glenn waits for us to bring the dogs to him and he loves and loves on them.. It literally brightens his whole face talking to those dogs! It was a good visit last night.. Saturday, we will all be at Barnes & Noble on Memorial Wrapping presents for free, so come by and visit if you want. The dogs and I will be there from 9-11 that morning..

I encourage anyone who has a dog that would like to do this, to get involved.. We have so many therapy reqests and not neary enough therapy dog teams.. You can go to New Leash on Life and find out information about how you can take the therapy dog classes, and the therapy dog test.. I can't tell you how rewarding it is! There are so many people that need these visits.. and so many dogs that love to visit, so its a great time to get started. Always good to give back during the Holiday Season.

I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping.. MJ and I finally put up the tree and lights on the house.. Its pretty ghetto, I'm not going to lie.. He was 'in theory' going to put up lights on the house.. but that never really happened.. So we ended up putting lights in the tree, around the garage, in the flower beds, and then I hung snowflake lights on the fence.. For Ghetto, its pretty good, lol.

There is rain in the forecast today.. I sure hope it does rain.. It makes me so sad to look at Lake Hefner lately.. I know Western OK needs the rain too.. Looks like we might get another Winter Storm on Christmas.. I can't complain, we've had it pretty fluffy so far for "winter" weather..

I always look forward to this time of year.. My grandma Leona used to have the most amazing Christmas's for us.. She would always let me open one gift the night before Christmas.. And I would be so excited! Of course I had the best parents, and grandparents in the world, so I always got everything on my list.. (I know, I know..spoiled)..but I'm not going to lie, it was a sweet gig.

Then on day we celebrated Christmas, we would walk into the house and the first thing you would smell would be homemade Rolls in the oven... She would always make something 'different' for Christmas dinner because she knew we would be sick of eating turkey & dressing.. So one year we would have Mexican Casserole, and another year Noodles.. She was an amazing cook.. After we would eat we would all go to the living room and we would sing.. My Uncle Don would sing Tenor, My Grandma, Alto, Me, whatever key I was singing in that day, lol, and my dad would sing Bass.. It was really like watching a Christmas movie.. Such a neat time in my life.. I hope to someday have cool traditions for my own family.. I always get a little sentimental this time of year because even though Leona died in 1999, I still miss her like it was yesterday.. But, it always makes me look forward to the holidays because My mom has now taken on a few of those traditions, and I've taken some as well.. Grandma always made Date-rolls.. I hate dates, so she would make mine without, lol.. So now I make date rolls for my family.. and Mom makes noodles.. Its a neat time of year.

I hope you guys have your own Christmas traditions.. and if not, you are making some new ones! Merry Christmas!! Be thankful for what you have.. God is good!!!

My grandparents, Shep & Leona, and me!