Had to Share...

Life Lately

WOW!!! Time flies...I think of sitting down and writing so often but clearly it doesn't happen. Life is full right now. It is great. God is so good. We are doing our best to fight the craziness. For some reason, these days they make you think you need to sign your kids up for 50 million activities and be involved in this and that and have "playdates"(I hate that word!!) and shuffle your kids around town. On top of all that you are supposed to help your kids get their homework done, clean house, do laundry, attend birthday parties, make time for friends and grandparents, have family time, etc. I seriously don't know how people do it all!! I am def one of those people who can't...and doesn't want too. Let me make it clear though I don't think there is anything wrong with "doin it all". I think it works for some families and that is how they function best! Good for them! It just ain't for this family...for now at least. We are trying our best to enjoy life and each other. My main goal in life right now is to be the best mom and wife I can be and there is not much more I can add to life right now without it taking away from that. One thing that has def been a road block for me lately is social media and my ipad/texting. I've been more intential about my time that I have with my kids. They want me...all of me, and how selfish I have been lately only giving them some of me. It makes me cringe thinking of how many times I have ignored them or made them wait or have made them feel less important because I've been too busy texting or playing a stupid game on the ipad. Luckily my kids are such a great example of what it is to forgive and show me grace. They still love me and want to be with me. I have started reading this amazing parenting book called Grace Based Parenting by Dr Tim Kimmel. LOVE IT and highly recommend it! Anyways, Mav is waking up and I have to go pick the girls up soon, but here's a few pics of life lately...

 

**This little boy is SO in love with his Daddy**

 **Celebrated 10 years of marriage with this guy and we get to go away for 2 nights this weekend!! We can hardly wait!!!**

 **Been making more of an effort to spend time with good friends who don't live so close. Love these kids SO much and can't wait to see them grow up together**

 **Kids got to be a part of a fun little photo shoot!**

That's all for now! Hopefully it won't be as long until I post again!!

Freebie Devotionals

Since we don't have a million dollars to send our kids to private school, although even if I did I'm not 100% sure I would anyways, and I don't have the patience, discipline or conviction to fully homeschool my kids, that leaves us with our local public school. When Taylor started kindergarten I definately felt like I was feeding her to the wolves. It was hard after 5 years of training and discipline to send her somewhere for half the day where most of our rules and everything we have been working towards would not be enforced.  Church is only 1-2 hours per week so my involvement in leading them spiritually is that much more important. A friend of mine told me about this website and I have found a few gems on it. I have only gone through one lesson so far and have just started another on honesty. Had an incident with Devan the other day where she majorly lied to me. I was devastated. I know she has lied about little things here and there, but this was a blantant lie. Anyways, that lead me to this website once again. We try to do little devotionals every day before they go to school. So if you are looking for something great check this website out! I believe its under printables and bible. I'm sure she has so many other great things to offer, but this is what I have found so far. It's a homeschooling website for those of you interested in the homeschooling thing and even those who aren't interested in homeschooling. ;)  I think that's all for now! Here is the site:    http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/my-printables

Life Lately

Where to begin...I always have SO much I want to blog about and then when I finally sit down to do it, I have no words to write. Life lately...well it's been tough, actually I have a hard time saying its been tough, cause really it's nothing to complain about. Life is good, really good. Challenging may be a better word. The girls had fall break a few weeks ago so we headed to Jalama Beach with some friends for a few days of beach camping. It was cold, windy, A LOT of work, but SO much fun. It's all worth it when you see how much fun your kids have! Before we went camping I started off with a cold for a few days. Taylor ended up getting it and it turned into a double ear infection. She actually played her soccer game totally sick and with a fever...parents of the year here...its good to burn off a fever right? :-/ Anyways, got her on some antibiotics and we were off to camp. I think the second morning into camping, Devan woke up with "the cough". Great. Her's ends up turning into pneumonia. Then Maverick and I end up getting sick and are still trying to get better. Of course when Danny heads back to work is when I spike a fever. I'm a pretty tough cookie. Most fire wives, or any wife whose husband is away a lot are kind of forced to be very independant and strong. So it takes a lot to break me or to get me to ask for help. Well, I broke. I texted Danny and said I.NEED.YOU. I had been taking care of sick kids for a week and half straight, I had been sick the last few days and then spiked a fever, I had dinner to make,make school lunches for the next day, soccer practice for Taylor, a puppy to take outside and watch pee every 15 minutes and a clingy, not feeling well one and a half year old that would not let me put him down. How was I supposed to do this all by myself? I teared a few times. I teared again after I found out that Danny wasn't going to be able to come home after all...oh, and he was working the next day too. Wonderful. That's when my MIL came to the rescue. She was able to come over that evening and pretty much tucked me in to bed and took care of the rest. The next day I felt like my fever went away, but here I am and I am still not 100% and Maverick has had a fever for the past 4 days. Oh, and then MIL came to the rescue again Saturday when we had a wedding reception to go to and she took care of kids and puppy! So thank you to all family and friends who helped out with kids and what not. Totally appreciate it!

Now back to the puppy. Some of you might be thinking that we already have 2 or 3 dogs so why would we get another one. Well to sum it up real quickly, our small dog Marley snuck out our back gate one night, and well lets just say the coyotes were out. :( That brought us down to 2. Well back a few months ago Savvy started getting crazy on Remi, long story short, Savvy kicked Remi's but for no reason, costing $200 in staples and stitches for Remi. Danny of course was not home when all of this happened and that was that. I don't put up with stuff like that. Savvy would be great for a one dog family. Unfortunately that was not the case and we've had Remi for 10 years, so Remi wins. So we enjoyed the single dog life for a few short months, until the opportunity arose for Danny to get a pretty expensive hunting dog for FREE. Remi's hunting days have pretty much come to an end, so it was time for the next. Anyways, her name is Nelli and she's pretty darn cute. She is NOT a chocolate lab although her and Remi look a lot alike. She's actually a Chesapeak Bay Retriever.

Life, although challenging lately, has been SO very good. I feel like there is SO much going on in the world today and even just in the lives of a lot of families around us. I have been feeling very blessed lately and not taking our home, jobs, health, and our family for granted. This is the most settled that we have ever been in the almost 10 years that we have been married and it feels so good. I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts cause who knows what The Lord has in store. :) Oh and to give an update on baby Hannah from my last post, she came home shortly after and has been happy and halthy since! And check out that photo of the cutest baby niece you will ever see! That's my little Lennon June. Isn't she a cutie!? :)

 

Please Pray

Asking for prayer for my best friend's baby Hannah. She was born a few days ago at 37 weeks and 4 days and has been in the NICU. She literally laughed her baby out and everything was great! It wasn't until a little while later when they took her to clean her up that she never returned. She has had all 3 of her other kids around this same time, and never had any issues. So this being her 4th this has been a complete shock to be going through something like this. So please say a prayer for baby Hannah that she feels better and gets to go home soon to be with her family. And pray for Alisha, as she literally is Super Mom,  feeling torn between staying with baby in NICU and being at home for her 3 other kids.

The Haps

And I'm back...sooner than later. So I officially ended my hiatas from Instagram after not looking at it for over 3 weeks. I have to say, I don't miss it anymore. It was REALLY hard at first, but now I don't even want to go back. I'm not saying I never will go back, nor do I have anything against IG or anyone who is on it. I don't consider myself "cooler" cause I'm not into anymore either. It is however forcing me to blog a bit more cause I want to remember stuff. :) This isn't the best pic but I tried capturing a moment of our last Friday night. It was just a causal Friday BBQ hang out in the culdesac, with 32 people...27 of which we fed. haha I think we counted almost 17 kids. What could have been totally chaotic, ended up being such a fun night! Everyone pitched in and brought a little something. The kids swam, played in the backyard, rode bikes and played kickball out front. The best part was that eveyone lives in the neighborhood. So I just felt blessed for the neighborhood that we live in, the neighbors that we have, and the house we have to be able to do something like this.

** Love that the girls are in to skateboarding right now**

 **Headed to Ventura this past Saturday and it was HOT!!!**

 **And the reason we headed to Ventura was to meet our newest family member!!! Little Lennon June was born on August 28th**

 ** She is the sweetest baby girl I have ever seen!!**

 **Wish we lived even closer, cause I can't get enough of her**

 **This girl is smarter than I give her credit for ;)**

 **Learning to love this girl every day. SO different from her big sis...which I love because they are both so special in their own ways. But what worked with Taylor def has not been working with Dev, so she is strechting and growing me every day as a parent. I am determined to figure this girl out.**

 ** All the cousins on the Nichols side**

 ** This little guy sure is coming in to his own. What a joy it has been having this guy added to our family. He is SO happy and easy going...as long as he gets what he wants. If he doesn't, plug your ears! **

Quick Update

This is the last thing I should be doing right now, but I'm doing it anyways. Life is full but good right now! School has officially started and so has soccer! The very last day of summer we took the metro from North Hollywood to Union Station to check out Olvera Street. What a trip! If you would like to culturize your kids and take them out of the safe bubble we like to keep them in then I would highly suggest doing this! You can always just drive to Olvera Street but what fun is that when you can take the underground metro!? It def took me out of my comfort zone too and Danny got a kick out of that!

 This is where you would find this guy if I let him hang here all day. He says "Daddy vroom vroom" and walks to the garage door. He sure is coming into his own little person and it's been fun to see. Along with entering the tamtrum phase...which hopefully we stay on top of, otherwise we are in for it!

 Our little soccer girl...I don't recommend it. haha unless soccer is your thing, don't sign them up for AYSO if you just want to "play for fun". She's in the next division up this year and it got a lot more serious, including practice twice a week plus games every saturday. oh yeah, and can't forget to mention I got suckered into team mom. So yeah, this naturally unorganized mom has a lot on her plate right now.

 First Day of school. Not gonna lie, it's been nice having both girls in school all day. From someone who has despised a schedule and routine, I'm starting to like it....a little. ;)

That's it for now. I haven't been on instagram for a few weeks now and I'm not sure if I am returning, so I plan to blog a little more often just to be able to document our lives somehow. :)