Where to begin?

well, I cant believe I have not sat down and "blogged" since right before Thanksgiving! I am so embarrassed! There are so many things I would love to catch everyone up on but I realize this is a blog and not a book so I will just hit the high points and go from there!

To catch everyone up, if you didnt already know, the day before Thanksgiving my grandma was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  Not exactly the Thanksgiving I had in mind but sometimes that is just the way life goes. Grandma, of course, has had an amazing attitude and continues to inspire me everyday. She had surgery shortly after Thanksgiving and everything went really well, we couldnt have asked for better. She has been doing radiation therapy for the past several weeks and only has 1 more week to go before they reevaluate the next step that is or isnt needed. It is my hope that she will get good news and they will tell her that she is officially in remission.

Christmas was so much fun with the kids this year. I think I may have been more excited to see them open their presents than they were excited to be opening them! My mother in law came to stay with us for 10days which.....was a challenge! I mean, let's be real here.....ANYONE coming to visit for 10days would be hard! VA has been hit with a TON of snow since the week before Christmas. We even had a white christmas while she was here which was a huge deal. She is almost 60 and has never seen a white Christmas before! I was glad for the extra memory for her and the kids.

After Christmas and the New Year, we celebrated my 27th birthday which was great and I followed that up with a trip to Philly with a bunch of the awesome women that work with Premier Jewelry. I had an amazing weekend and really enjoyed the fellowship but also the time to myself. Honestly, the weekend was so much more than just a jewelry rally, it was inspiring on so many levels. I am thankful that God led me to Premier and especially to all the wonderful, kind hearted people there as well.

I guess that leaves.....Valentine's day? It was really great, this year Matthew and I decided to keep it simple. He MADE me a card! I loved it. I think that is a first for him? We have been together almost 12years so that is a big deal :) We went out to dinner and just really tried to enjoy being together just the two of us. That doesnt seem to come around very often so I really wanted us to enjoy it to the fullest.

The kids are growing up so fast and we actually put them in "big kid" beds last week! I cant believe their cribs are gone already. Where did the time go? I know everyone says that at some point in their life but seriously, what the heck have I been doing the past 2 1/2 years of their life? Sure there is the changing diapers and cooking and CLEANING that I obsess over but have I spent enough quiet moments with them? Read to them enough? Played with them enough? Relaxed with them enough? How often do I get so caught up in being "mom" that I forget to just enjoy the small things. I am trying to work on this and really praying about prioritizing my time in a way that would bring me closer to my kids but also as a chance to bring God glory. So many distractions in life and 90% of them will end up forgotten when we look back and say "where did the time go?" . Funny how that works.

Well, I suppose this is as good as I can do for catching everyone up. I plan to keep up with this blog better now. I enjoy it and I have missed it. It is just hard sometimes to make myself sit back and reflect. Sometimes, I am just too tired, sometimes I am just too lazy, sometimes I am just too busy and sometimes I just dont wanna really sit down and think about EVERYTHING going on and make myself accountable to growing the way I should be growing as a believer and as a mother and as a wife. So, here's to a fresh start....