Easter

 

 

Happy Easter Everyone!!!!

We are a little late in getting this out, but still I thought that I'd share our day.  We didn't have much planned, I decided to help out at church by working in the nursery.  They were expecting a lot more people to be at church than usual, and needed more help.  Since I'm still on staff, I worked the Saturday evening service in the one year old classroom, then worked the largest service 10:00 on Sunday morning with the 2-6 month old babies. It is amazing how much I've forgotten how little those itty bitty babies are.  After that, Tom and Jaycee met me at church and we attended the late Sunday service at 11:30.  I have really been loving going to that service b/c the music is amazing.  Lately, I have really been listening to the Newsboys, Mandisa, and Jeremy Camp's worship songs.  In that service they tend to play a lot of that kind of music for a younger crowd.  I guess that I'm just young at heart.  The main theme of the Pastor's sermon was that without Christ there is no HOPE, but because He died for our sins, we have HOPE in Him and can live life knowing that HOPE is for anyone who believes!!!  How great it is to know our Lord's love for us.

One of the things that I have really loved about Easter is that our Church has "Hosanna Path".  This is the stages or path that Jesus took on the way to the Cross and then His Resurrection which is what Easter is all about.  I loved going through that and having a personal devotional time reflecting what Christ did for us. 

Later, we went out to eat and had a relaxing day, napping, watching b-ball, and taking a walk.  We didn't do any of the Easter egg hunts or anything like that this year.  For some reason, this year, it didn't seem like that was what we wanted to focus on.  We are grateful that Christ died for us and that we have HOPE through Him.

We hope that everyone had a great day!!!




Jaycee decided to dance while we took a walk in the afternoon.
Love this girl, she has such a joyous spirit!!!

the Ehrlichs

Random Acts of Busyness

The last couple of months and a half has been super busy for us.  I don't think that we've had a single weekend since Thanksgiving where we didn't have something planned or somewhere to go.  I have loved catching up with old friends and seeing people that I don't get to see often at this time of year.   But it has left me with little time to catch up on my blogging and getting organized.  That is one area of my life that I want to work on. 

Here are some things that we've done over the couple of months:

Thanksgiving

I didn't really do a thanksgiving post, mainly because I have had some issues with my camera, and most of the time, I forget to pull it out but instead I am living life without capturing those wonderful moments.  I did get some of Jaycee playing in the leaves, since it was amazingly beautiful out, can't believe it was so nice in Kansas the end of November.  Jaycee is my best subject to take pictures of.  We spent the morning and afternoon at my grandma's house out on the farm.  They have a lot of room outside to run and play and lots of leaves, cats, and a dog for Jaycee to chase and manhandle.  She loves those cats, but I'm not sure how they feel about her, but they were pretty tolerable of how she would try to pick them up and carry them around the yard.  We ate too much food, watched football, and played some card games.  I even got my parents to join in with us. 

Wedding

One of my roommates from college got married the beginning of December.  My senior year, six of us got the chance to live in the nearly new (only a year of two old) dorms.  It was more of large apartment with three bedrooms and a great living room where we all hung out a lot.  Those were some great times.  I remember playing football (powder puff) with most of the girls, and the ones who didn't play were our biggest supporters.  So I got the chance to see most of them at my friend Gail's wedding.  She looked amazing and it was such a beautiful December day. 

 

 

 

Family Pictures

So I have loved seeing everybody's family pictures on facebook this year.  I get so inspired when looking at the types of pictures, locations, and family attire that people choose for their family pictures.  I got the name of a wonderful young woman from a friend of a friend on facebook.  Since I was a little late in figuring out when we would have a free weekend, she was so kind of take our family pictures last weekend.  We went to Hesston at the Arboretum there.  Now it has been several years since I have been there, but we had a beautiful setting to take our family pictures.  Actually, this same place is where Tom and I had our engagement pictures about 12 years ago.  It was neat to see how things changed and the different new settings they now have. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Decorating

I took a minimalist view on decorating this year.  We do have two Christmas trees, one that is small and sits on a table where Jaycee puts her handmade ornaments, and they our tree which has no presents under it yet.  They are in the basement, but not wrapped or anything.  Still needing to do that sometime soon.  We also have a small assortment of icicle lights just above our porch.  Jaycee had a lot of fun helping me put up the tree and lights, and our ornaments are hung in a sporadic fashion, but it is fun to see how she lights up when the  tree is strung up with beads, lights, and other ornaments.  She did notice and point out to me that most of the ornaments we have are snowman related.  I never really paid much attention to it, but she kept handing them to me and saying "snowman, another snowman".  It was funny!!! 


Christmas Music

This hasn't taken up much of our time, but I just have a couple of funny stories to share.  The first one is that in our area one of the local radio stations start playing only Christmas music from Thanksgiving day until Christmas day.  Usually I have a radio playing when Jaycee takes naps and goes to bed.  It is set with a timer and goes off after so many minutes.  I guess that there are some Christmas songs that they like to play more often than others.  One morning or maybe it was after Jaycee woke up from a nap, she was sitting in her bed all by herself singing, "Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away."  She continued to sing most of the rest of the song.  I couldn't believe that of all the awesome Christmas songs that is the one she remembers.  Another funny story about music, that doesn't necessarily have to do with Christmas music is that for anyone who knows me well and has gotten to see the side of me that lets loose a little, I love to jam and rock out, especially to really fun and rockin music.  Well, a friend lent me her Mandisa cd a while ago, and I have been playing it a lot in the car mostly.  When the radio stations started to play Christmas music, I thought that I'd give Mandisa a rest and listen to some Christmas music.  But Jaycee just wasn't going to stand for that.  Every time we get in the car, I would have Christmas music playing, and I would hear this little voice from the backseat say, "Mandisa please mommy?"  She loves to jam just like her mommy.  What a fun little girl she has become.

 

Still Here

My blogging has suffered a whole lot lately, but we're still here and still living life.  I must say that this holiday season hasn't been the most upbeat one I've ever had.  We've had some overwhelming situations that have thrown us a little as a family and have helped us see what is important.

First I will start off by saying that December was extremely busy for us.  I can't remember being so busy and not working.  Every weekend was loaded with some type of event or outing that was planned way in advance without me knowing how busy that would make us.  To just share a little of our experiences, we had a wedding to attend for one of my college roommates, we decorated Christmas cookies (a tradition that I love, but takes a lot of time), we took family pictures outside this year with a professional, and then to end with a sad note, Tom's dad passed away the week before Christmas and there were a lot of preparations to be made for that.  Tom and his brother and sister are still going through his dad's house sorting through what to sell, give away, and keep.  His dad was quite the collector. 

Needless to say, this holiday season has been pretty overwhelming and busy.  We did have Tom's family over for Christmas Eve.  They came to church with us and then we ate some awesome smoked ham, and other delicious food.  We also played some card games and Jaycee got her uncle John to sit down and watch her favorite movie (at least for now) The Polar Express.  Funny story about that movie, I won it in a white elephant gift exchange earlier in the month, and Jaycee has been wanting to watch it every day since then.

I am looking forward to this new year.  There are so many things that I want to do differently with my time for myself, make better efforts to have a quiet time with God a priority, and using my time with my family in a more productive and relationship building way.  I also want to be more mindful of how busy I am and make the most of the time I have when I am with the people I'm with.

You will get more details on our recent activities in another post, but I just wanted to get a quick update to let you know that we are still here and I do still blog, but sometimes the events of life just make blogging not the top priority of my list and living life becomes a little more important.

We are so thankful that God has brought through this busy and sad time and that his faithfulness is ever present even though we fail to trust Him.  So glad for a God like that!!!


the Ehrlichs

Froese Christmas

Every year, we get together at my grandma Froese's for the holidays.  My mom has 4 sisters and most of us cousins have starting having kids.  So it makes for quite the entertaining times.  There are several things that I remember and love about getting together at my grandma Froese's house.  Most of all I love that we can just hang out, play cards, or just sit around and watch football or whatever game happens to be on at the time.

This year, we got together again, but we did the Froese Christmas on New Year's Day.  One of the things that is so memorable about going there is that my grandparents (who are in their late 80s) are always cold.  This makes my grandpa who loves to stoke the fire and  add more and more wood all throughout the day.  What is really funny about this is that the rest of us are really hot!!!  We end up opening windows in the middle of winter while my grandpa adds yet another log on the fire.  You would think that we would have learned to dress in layers when going, but somehow we just forget about it.

This year, Jaycee's cousins were able to make it.  So my parents had all of their grandchildren to play with.  I think that they may have worn my parents out.  The adults were able to get some peace when a couple of the kiddos fell asleep (who knows how that happened with all the loud noises) and we played cards.   All in all it was a really nice and relaxing day.  Once again, instead of capturing life with pictures, I was getting involved with what was happening, so limited photos.  I really need to be a little better at capturing pictures when we do these things. 

 This is my mom with Jaycee and Ethan.  Jaycee and Ethan were eating dry cereal and Jaycee was trying to feed them to Ethan.  Those two are pretty funny together.

Eating more cereal.  It was so hard to get them all to look at me at the same time.  This was the best that I could get.

Hope that everyone had a great 2011 and we'll see ya in 2012!!!

the Ehrlichs

This Christmas

This year, I thought we were going to have a peaceful and relaxing time with our families.  But sometimes my plans are not always what happens.  You'd think I'd be used to this by now, but I am continually getting lessons on flexibility. 

Our break started out like any other.  We had a work day at school, then last minute shopping for the food I needed to make (which was really easy this year), then making sure that everything was wrapped and ready to go.  We had planned on doing our Christmas with the Walker family on Christmas Eve and then spending the night with my folks and having Christmas with the Ehrlich family on Christmas night.  Well, when we got to my parents house, we were told that my nephew Ethan (my brother Brandon's son) was in the hospital.   It turned out that he had pnemonia (not sure about that spelling).  We headed up to the hospital and brought him a couple of gifts that we had for him b/c he was not able to even walk around since he was hooked up to a bunch of tubes.  So we thought that maybe a new toy would take his mind off of not being able to run around.

Going to the hospital was not the best place for Jaycee, but she did pretty good and lucky for us, Ethan was the only kid on that floor.  So it was OK that Jaycee was kinda loud.  The timing was not great for her either, but what can you do?  We felt so bad for poor Ethan, but it looked like things were getting better for him by the morning.  We all ate breakfast that my parents made for us, and then headed back to the hospital to check on Ethan.  It looked like he was breathing on his own for a whole 24 hours and he was going to be released soon. 

Being in a hospital was not the best place for a busy two year old, and Jaycee and I and Tom took turns walking up and down the halls while we waited for the status on Ethan.  Eventually we all ended up back at my parents house and finally had a late lunch and then opened the rest of our gifts.  The kids ended up liking each other toys which was quite funny to all of us.  After unwrapping the new toys, we found the kids in the back room playing with all the old toys while the grown ups were investigating their new toys.  Something is wrong with that picture.

Later on in the evening, we headed over to Tom's sister's house and ate another big meal there too.  I think that we need to only do one meal a day from now on, but our plans were slightly changed due to the hospital.  After eating, we watched the kids play with Tom's brother Danny's new puppy which is super cute and cuddly.  Jaycee right now is really into animals and wants to pick them all up.  We are working on her being gentle with them and just petting them.  But when they are so little, I think that she thinks they are like her stuffed animals.  Both her and the dog wore each other out by the end of the night.  We did a lot of talking and watched football and watched the kids play with their toys.  I am so glad that both families this year decided that it was ok to just get gifts for the kids.

This was an idea that I got from Pinterest and had to try.  It is a Christmas tree made out of felt and then I also cut out round red ornaments and what were supposed to look like lights.  Jaycee has a lot of fun "decorating" the tree over and over again, until it fell off the door and we couldn't figure out how to get it back up without falling down.  She got really made when it fell down.

I found a really neat idea from a teacher that I work with about making your child's faces into elves.  Then you use their name as an acrostic poem to write things that describe them.  I made two of them this year and they turned out pretty cute!!!

 This is our Christmas tree this year. 

We were pretty low key with our decorations this year, and I actually really liked that.

 One of Jaycee's Christmas presents.  A new kitchen that will hold up for a while (I hope).

 Jaycee decided that while Tom and I were putting together her kitchen, she would eat some animal crackers.  We were wondering why she was so quiet.  She has decided that she likes sitting at the table in the BIG chair instead of her booster seat, but she still has to use her booster most of the time.

 Daddy was having fun putting together the kitchen.

Jaycee did not have a nap at all on Christmas day, and this is her when we went to Tom's sister's house.  She instantly took to Tom's brother's new puppy, and decided to cuddle up with her new Jayhawk blanket and the puppy.  I think that both her and the dog wore each other out.

Well, it wasn't quite the holiday that we had set out to be, but we made some pretty fun memories anyways. We hope that you all had a great and Merry Christmas too wish you a wonderful start to your new year.

(By the way, in all the excitement I had limited time to take pictures, so this post is not as riddled with pictures as some others)

the Ehrlich's

Family Pictures

This year I decided that it would be fun to get some family pictures taken for Christmas.  This is something that I have wanted to do for a few years now, but with so much happening in the last several years, it just wasn't on the top of my priority list. 

I must say that Christmas has been really hard for me for several years now.  Losing our first child right before Thanksgiving and Christmas was not a great way to make us want to celebrate much.  Some of those hard times still creep up every so often.  But since we have a little girl and it is our 2nd Christmas with her, I thought that I should get into the spirit of Christmas. 

I recently became fascinated with Pinterest.  This is a great website if you love to spend lots of time on the computer (which I don't).  I have found so many ideas for lots of things from organizing my house (not there by any means), decorating ideas, holiday ideas, stuff to use in the classroom, exercise tips, and recipes.  I still would love to be able to do so many of the things that I have pinned, but there just isn't enough time in my days for that. 

Well, there was one thing that I found on Pinterest that was helpful for our Christmas pictures.  I found a site that showed helpful hints to coordinate family members' outfits for such a picture as this.  One of the ideas was to find an outfit or pattern for one member of the family, and coordinate around that print, pattern, or color.  Since there are so very many cute little girl outfits out for Christmas this year, I decided that we needed to coordinated around what Jaycee was wearing.  I found an adorable silver little skirt and black polka dot tights for her, and then decided that Tom and I should wear solid colors that went with it.  You will see in the pictures I show you.  It wasn't quite the traditional red and green, but I think that they turned out pretty good.

As soon as I knew that I wanted to take a family Christmas picture this year, I called Portrait Innovations and scheduled an appointment with them.  I know that this time of year is pretty busy and I wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to get in without too much waiting.  Patience is not one of Jaycee's better qualities.  We spent one Saturday afternoon after Jaycee's nap and got our pictures taken. 

Since we got their special package, I thought it would be great to send out Christmas cards and include a holiday picture with it too.  Below are some of our favorite pictures that we took that day.  We hope that everyone will have a wonderful Christmas celebrating Jesus' birth and spending time with family and friends.

This is one of my favorite pictures b/c we are all looking at the camera, and smiling.

A different angle of the same picture.  I am always amazed how they can get Jaycee to look at them for long enough to take the picture.

Jaycee did a couple shots by the tree herself.  She kept moving, but they were so good with her.

We don't have many pictures of Tom and I together, thought this was a cute one.

Jaycee with her favorite blanky.  So cute!!!

This picture was kind of funny, b/c she wouldn't stay on the purple area for very long at all.  She kept saying mess and made some pretty weird faces.

This is the face we see everyday.

What an awnry look she has?

This is when she gets excited.  They were throwing leaves for her to catch.

One of my favorites.

Playful

We had a great time, and loved going to Portrait Innovations for these pictures.  The great thing that I loved about it was that we got a CD in case we wanted more prints and we also got to take our pictures home that same night.

the Ehrlichs

Random Things We've Done . . .

I am so behind on blogging these days.  It seems like when December hit, the world got really busy.  At least that's how I feel these days anyway.  I really can't even explain what exactly it is, just a lot of things planned with the holidays upon us. 

Froese Thanksgiving

So I posted last time my Thanksgiving Top Ten List for 2011.  Really we did some other things, but I took minimal pictures.  I guess I had more fun experiencing life as it was happening instead of snapping some much needed photos.  One of the things that we did that I really enjoyed is going to grandma's house.  That is my grandma Froese.  My grandparents live on a farm in a small town about an hour away from us.  This place has held a lot of memories for me.  When my family first moved to Kansas, we lived with my grandparents for a couple of months.  At that time the house seemed a pretty good size for many gatherings, but when we went back there for our Froese Thanksgiving, it seemed quite small.  Maybe it's that fact that our family is really growing.  There were 3 new babies since the last time we were together.  All of them were born in September.  These are my cousin's kids.  So they would be second cousins to Jaycee.  It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun and food.  Also we were able to just hang out, talk, and relax (my favorite).

My mom (aka grandma Walker) with Jaycee and her cousin Ethan.

My brother Brandon and his son Ethan.

More Ethan.  He's so cute!!!

Jaycee.  Loving the outdoors on the farm.

Jumping and rolling around in the leaves.

Pumpkin Dessert
I made this from a recipe that I got from another teacher at school.

Peanut Butter Brownies
These were a big hit and super easy to make.


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Halloween Overshadowed

Now before I talk about Halloween, I must preface it by saying that Halloween was the last day that I felt Caden moving before he was stillborn.  It's kind of a bittersweet day for me now, but still I try to find ways to enjoy and make new memories with my family. 

We went to a pumpkin patch this year and were able to get three cute pumpkins before Halloween.  So I went on pinterest (my new favorite site) and found some pumpkin face templates



Jaycee liked lining them up on our porch.

We have noticed that since the fall sports are on TV a lot lately, that Jaycee loves them as much as we do. So Tom dug out this basketball goal from the basement and dusted it off and put it in Jaycee's playroom/ living room for a new toy for her to play with. This is orginally supposed to be hung on the back of a door or sitting on a table or something, but it works great on the floor b/c it is just her size.


She knew exactly what to do which made us both so proud.  Maybe we have a ball player on our hands???

For Halloween, we wanted to keep things pretty simple.  I am not a super huge fan of the holiday anyways.  So when we were trying to think of things that Jaycee could be, we rummaged through some stuff and found this outfit that grandma and grandpa Walker gave.  I'm not really sure when, but it still fit her, it is just a little short since she has had many growth spurts over the months.  We decided that this would be a great, cheap, and fun costume for her this year.   Since most of the stuff for girls is all princess and fairy stuff, I thought it might be nice to do something a little different.  I guess I don't want to force the whole princess stuff on her unless that is what she wants.  She can decide that for herself when she gets older.

Our little football player.



She loved this pool of shredded paper.
We almost couldn't get her to leave.

Twilight

Why I'm putting this in with the rest of the stuff, I don't know except that I don't want to write a seperate post about it.

Well, I'm sure that most of you know or have at least heard of the Twilight series. It started out with books, and then they made several movies about those books. I will have to admit that I was so not wanting to get into these books/movies at all. Maybe it is my nature to not go with the crowd, who knows.

Last year, my friend Stephanie while we were visiting her in Kansas City asked me if I had read any good books lately. I said that I really hadn't had any time these days to do much reading. She told me that she got into this series that totally blew her away. I was anticipating her to tell me about some new series by a christian author that I love, but no she told me about the Twilight books. I just rolled my eyes. As she kept talking about it, she said that she had 2 of the movies and asked me if I wanted to watch them. Since our husbands took our kids for a while, I thought oh well, I could at least see what all the craziness was about. Well, I saw the first movie Twilight, and immediately became hooked. It wasn't at all what I expected. I thought that it would be all about vampires and wolves and gory stuff that they do, but instead it was about a love story. I can never get enough of a love story. Once we were finished with the first movie, we watched the 2nd one called New Moon. After we were done watching that, we talked our husbands into staying homw with the kids and we went to the latest showing of the 3rd movie Eclipse. That was the most action packed one yet.

Well a couple of weekend ago, I went to see the 4th movie, New Dawn with my friend Meagan and some other girls that she works with. It was awesome!!!! I can't believe that I have to wait another year for the final movie to come out. But I guess it gives me time to dive into the books again and hopefully see that movie again when it comes to the Palace theaters which are a little cheaper. There was so much I missed the first time. Anyway, just a little confession of mine for you to know about me. I am officially a Twilight fan!!!

Well, there's a little snapshot of what we've been up to. It's too bad that it takes me so long to get caught up with what I want to say. I am challenging myself to do a better job of staying updated at least once a week if not more. So much happens sometimes that I can't get it all down in one sitting, but then again there are some weeks that we just don't do anything. Well, if you have suggestions for how I can get more organized about this, I would love to hear about it. Most of my time is spent hanging out with Jaycee and teaching and learning new things with her. One of the only times that I have to really blog is in the evenings, but I like to save my evenings for my husband. Well, someday I will get it all figured out at least for me that is.

Until next time,

Thanksgiving 2011 Top 10 List

The month of November always seems to be hard for me since we lost Caden.  I often wonder what our lives would have looked like had he been around to share in these past 4 years with us.  It often makes me sad but yet encouraged that he is in the best place possible and one day we will see each other again.

I thought that since our holidays were kind of mellow this year that I would just share a bit about the top ten things that I am thankful for this year.

#1    My Husband

Tom and I have been together for a very long time.  We have been married for 10 and a half years, but we dated for 3 years before that while I finished college.  He has been through a lot with me.  We have had some really great and wonderful times and we have had some really terrible moments too.  He has always been the best friend I could have to lean on when things get tough, and also the first person I want to tell about the awesome things that happen too.  He is the kind of guy who values relationships and always strives to do what it right even if it means not being so popular sometimes.

#2     Jaycee

I honestly have a hard time remembering what our lives were like before she came into this world.  She was such a huge blessing and has been a really great kid.  Right now she is in the twos which I hear are pretty terrible.  She does test us and pushes her boundaries and even her luck sometimes, but I would not have things any other way.  She came into our lives at the perfect time when we needed some cheering up.  Having her was the beginning of learning how to live with the peace that only God can give.

#3     Home

We have been living in the same place for the last 9 years.  While we have had to replace a lot of things, our home has been there for us.  It shelters us from this crazy Kansas weather.  You know what I'm talking about.  The wind that practically blows you into the next state.  The extreme temper changes where you leave home in the morning without a coat only to find that you need it when you head home.  The heat, it is so hot that you drip buckets of sweat just from standing outside doing nothing.  Anyway, I have really liked all of the do-it-yourself projects that we have been able to do to make our home truly unique and ours.  Lowes, Home Depot, and now Menards have gotten to know us well.  There is still more we want to do, but for now I am learning to try to be content with what we have done to the place.



This is our house now.  We just this past summer painted the outside.









This is what our house looked like before we painted it.  











 #4     My Parents

I am really lucky.  I couldn't ask for better parents.  They have been huge examples of the kind of hardworking and responsible person I want to be.  I am sure that it wasn't easy for them raising 3 kids who couldn't be more different.  I remember so many things about my parents as a kid, and now I am being repayed for some of the things I did as a kid (ask me about the grocery store sometime).  Through the years, Tom and I have grown really close to my parents.  They were so supportive to us when we lost Caden.  Really they didn't do anything special, but they were there and called, and checked in on us and just made every effort to show us that Caden meant something to them too.  That really means so much to me, and it has helped my relationship with them grow even more.



My dad reading a book to Jaycee.











My mom with Jaycee and her cousin at her first birthday.
(I think I need to take more pictures of them together)



#5     Friends



Tom and I are so blessed to have some great friends.  We have leaned on them through some very trying times in our lives, and they have allowed us to be whoever we needed to be at the time.  Most of them know who they are, but we have such a great connection with the Wells.  They have been so comforting to us after losing Caden and that has stuck with us.  They also were so open to being friends with older people and we have an amazing connection with them.  Wish that our lives would slow down more so that we could see them more, but life doesn't always ask us what we want, so we get together with them at a moments notice sometimes.  It is great to have friends like that who just accept you for who you are mess and all.  We have so many other friends that I would love to talk about too, but since I am sharing Thanksgiving moments I thought that I would spotlight them (we had an amazing taco salad thanksgiving dinner with them last night).

#6     Health

I wish that I could say that I am in tip top perfect health and right where I want to be physically.  I'm not, but what I can say is that I am able to jog, walk, lift weights, take a zumba class, and play with my daughter without pain (maybe a little, strained shoulder from a football injury).  But I say all this to say that I am thankful that I can be active no matter what shape my physical body is in, I am able to get out and do things.  I have seen some people recently in our family who have not been able to do much of anything lately, and I thank God everyday that I can get out of bed and prepare for the day.  One of my goals is to do this more regularly and to have a set routine.  But I'm working on it.

#7     Bible Study

I have been going to a Monday night Bible study with some girls for the last several years now.  We are all from different walks of life and we know each other from each other.  That is to say that we were all invited by someone in the group and that is how the Bible study was formed.  These girls are truly amazing.  They will not hesitate to help in any situation that I have found myself in.  I have also gotten to know some of them really well despite tragedy.  In a way that brought us closer.  I was able to open up and share with some like I hadn't been able to before.  I love those girls. 

#8     Part Time Job

I am really thankful that God has allowed me to continue to job-share with a terrific teacher this year again.  I love the schedule that we have and I love that I can spend some more time with Jaycee.  I get the best part of her day.  While I wish that I didn't have to work at all,  I know that I have a great talent for sharing the joy of learning with kids.  It is not something that I thought I would be so good at, but third graders are pretty great sometimes.  I also feel like I am helping contribute to our families budget and that not all of the financial burden is on Tom's shoulders.

#9     Family

The last few years have been quite interesting for our family.  When I say this I mean aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas, and grandpas and all of their kids.  Our family has really grown and now that me and all of my cousins are having kids of our own, it is fun to reminisce about some of the things we used to do that our kids are now doing at grandmas.  It has also been great to see the blessings that babies and kids bring to the family.  My exteneded family has had several funerals to go to and it has been tough at times not to see those people at family functions.  I miss the interactions with those people and what they bring to the group.

#10   God

While I have had my ups and downs with God and have wrestled with Him over many things.  The truth of the matter is that He does not ever leave me.  He holds me in pain and listens to me and cries with me and lets me know that He too carries my burdens with Him.  All to often I forget that.  I am thankful that I have Him in my heart and that He reveals parts of Himself to me everyday.  

So there it is my list.  I never thought that I would be so into lists, but maybe it's just a phase or something, but I sure would love to know what your top ten things to be thankful for are.