Julietta and Jesus had a heart to heart

Dear sweet Julietta asked Jesus into her heart tonight. Yesterday we were talking about Heaven, and my dad, and she was just asking a ton of questions. She's always asked questions but never really gone anywhere with them. Yesterday after coming around to asking about who goes to Heaven she said that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart. I wanted to pull over the car on the side of the road, but she was running into gymnastics. I did not want to rush it, and I also wanted Randy to be there for it.
So today when we got home she said "Can I ask Jesus into my heart now?" So we went into our room and sat down with her on our bed. We asked her what she thought it meant. She said just to ask him in. Then we asked her what Jesus did. She said "He died on the cross". What did he die for Etta, "He died for our sins." What our sins Etta? "They are the bad things we do that we should not do."  Then we asked what happened after that. She told us that he rose from the grave after 3 days. She also said it like "duh". At this point we knew that she knew what she was talking about. So we had a conversation about grace, and how asking Jesus into your heart is asking him to come inside you and live with you forever. It's also asking for forgiveness for everything you've done wrong, and also for everything you will do. And how now that Jesus lives inside you, your goal is to love Jesus and others as he wants you to. And so then she said ok, can I pray? Her prayer went something like this...... "Dear God, would you please come into my heart. Would you forgive me of all the bad things I've done and those things I've done that I shouldn't have done. Would you come into my heart and have every day be like that? In Jesus name, Amen."   Then she couldn't stop smiling!


On such a horrific day in America where my heart is just aching for other moms, God has given me a wonderful gift. My little girl who was not pushed, and who we allowed to come to her own choice about the matter, just gave her heart over to Jesus. I am overjoyed! I know my dad is super happy in Heaven right now and I can't wait to see what God has in-store of this little life he has entrusted to us!

Reboot

So a lot has happened in our lives in the past three months. God has been with us the whole way even though it was painful and took everything inside of me to just survive.
Anyway, for those who are interested and want to know details we are more than willing to talk about it, but just for the blog I am just going to put up our "wedding" picture. God has helped us start over and through Jesus and His sacrifice we can reboot.

Here's the picture of us off my phone, and a picture I took of Kyleigh who wanted to wear a wedding dress too.
Thank you to everyone who prayed for us during our difficult time and I am happy to say that we are back and stronger than ever as a family :)

Julietta's Birthday Party

For Julietta's birthday this year we had a little tea party at my mom's house with just some of her school friends. She LOVED it.  We had four friends from her school over and we had them dress up and it was a ball. We colored pictures, had a tea party, had cupcakes, opened presents, made jewelry, and painted fingernails. I think it was a hit!

I can not believe my baby girl is about to be 6. It seems mindblowingly ridiculous to think that it was 6 years ago that I was in the hospital right now waiting for her to arrive. We will do a family party later and I'll post pictures of those.

First day of First Grade

My Julietta started first grade today! I can't believe the time is already here and I can not believe she is so old already! Where does time go?
Here are some things about Julietta:
What she wants to be when she gets older: Marine Biologist
Favorite Color: Still loves Pink, Purple, and White. Her new favorite is Blue
Favorite thing to do: She loves to sing, dance, be a rock star. She still loves to color and draw. She loves Barbie, Hello Kitty, and still Disney Princess
She loves all things Dolphins and Peace signs!
She is still doing Gymnastics and she has recently started to love swimming.
She has a heart of Gold.
She loves her family and she loves Jesus. She prays every night that he will take away her sins.

I will ask her some more questions tomorrow about 1st grade and update any other information :)

Done with Kindergarten????

Yes that is correct, my sweet little baby girl is done with Kindergarten. Can that be correct? She just started. Literally I think it was last week that she just started. While that's not serious it is what it feels like. Julietta has grown up so much this year, but not in the ways that I feared. She has remained who she is and has stayed the sweet innocent little girl that she was on her first day. She has had some heartache dealing with other girls that are not as sweet and innocent as she is, but she stayed a good friend and has learned so much. She has learned that God made her to have a sweet spirit and gave her the gift of loving others. She said that is why he put a heart birthmark on her, because she loves! Julietta also made it through the entire year of getting green owls everyday! I am so proud of her. She loves school and loves to learn.
Here are some pictures from their end of the year party!

 Julietta getting her certificate saying that she completed Kindergarten.

 Julietta's teacher Mrs. Fields. The best teacher we could've asked for! She was wonderful :)

 Her friend Madison.

 This is her BFF Alexia. They found out today that they are in the same class next year! Yay!

 The teachers aid Mrs. Skiscim. She was wonderful too. They just loved on Julietta!

 Etta reading her end of the year writing about everything she learned in K and what she liked.

Julietta, Alexia, and Marley. They had so much fun this year!

We were very happy with our year, and after having so much worry about sending her to public school had a wonderful experience. We will be off for 4 weeks and then Julietta will start 1ST GRADE, on July 30th :)

this week

So, this blog is slowly just becoming about my struggle with my weight, but trying to not make it that! I did lose 3 pounds this week, so that's at least in the right direction :) 32 until my ultimate goal.... lol. That's gonna take forever at the rates I am going!

Anyway, the kiddos have been sick this week. Last night they all had fevers and were just yucky. I am praying that they get over it fast. Also I have stopped on the potty training Ender for the moment. It just wasn't going smooth, so I am waiting until I get back from my intensive to re-start. Next week I am leaving from Sunday until Friday to go to Liberty and do one of my three intensives. I can not say I am looking forward to it. Part of me is really excited to actually be doing some practical classroom stuff for counseling. The other part of me is hating leaving my family for that long, and missing 4th of July. But since money is tight I am sharing a room with 3 other girls in a hotel to keep cost down. While it's awesome to keep cost down, I do not know these girls. So the idea of sharing a bed with someone I do not know is making me a little nervous. Pray for Randy too during this week. He will be alone with the kids the whole time. He has never done this and while he will do great, it can be quite stressful and no fun. My mom and brother and sister are going to be out of town that week too, so he will have no help what so ever.

I will try and post a video soon, but Julietta is getting really close to swimming on her own. While this may seem late to some, this is the girl who hated getting her hair washed because she does not like water on her face. So for her to be swimming without a life vest and willingly putting her head under the water (even for 2 seconds) is a VERY BIG milestone!!!!

day one of raw

Today has been pretty good considering! This morning I had a banana with about a tablespoon of peanut butter. For a snack I had an apple. For lunch I had carrots and celery with hummus. I then got hungry again about an hour later and had another apple with another tablespoon of peanut butter. For dinner I had a big salad made of romaine, carrots, celery, avocado, and I had one hard boiled egg, with Goddess dressing. I know the egg is not vegan or raw. When reading about Raw and Vegan the most important thing is 90% coming from plants. Obviously with raw that needs to be raw plants. I needed some more protein today so I decided it was ok. My goal is to have 90% be raw vegan. I also must confess that I had my coffee with alittle cream and stevia in it. I am not ready to give up coffee or creamer. I have been in a little fog and a little cranky. I also have a headache now at the end of the day. I'm sure this is the sugar withdraw. However, it might be that time and it was raining today so we were all inside. That might be why I'm cranky ;)
I have not had the big detox effects yet that everyone talks about. From what I've read though this sometimes doesn't happen until around day 3. Praying for big results this week! I have done goo with water. I am one water bottle away from a gallon and it's only 7:30. I will get that in! I read somewhere that you should have the gallon in  by 4 so I will work on that tomorrow :)

End of 30 days

So I did 30 days of vegan. I gotta say I liked it. I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted. Almost 3 pounds which is really nothing. So, I'm taking this weekend off and then starting Monday, I am going Raw.... :) Hoping this does the trick!

Pullen Park

 Ender loves the train. It's such a fun part of the park.

 Big kids on the boat. There was no way Kyleigh would get on that!

 So she watched along with Nana

The girls riding the train! 

There is this awesome park here in Raleigh that has little boats, a merry go round, train, and playground. It also is on a lake. Mom and I took the kids one Sunday morning. And I'm pretty sure that is the best time to go. The park is always slammed. It re-opened recently and we went for the grand-opening and it was heart attack central. I was so stressed when I got home because I just felt like I could not keep an eye on my children. It wasn't crowed at all on Sunday morning. Raleigh is a fairly religious area so I'm assuming that is what it's about. We left around 2 and it was starting to pick up. We will be going tons in the fall but I'm hoping to get one more chance to go in before it gets too hot.
The kids had a blast. Kyleigh did not like the merry-go-round. I'm not sure why except it was kind of fast. Next time I'll try sitting with her in my lap.

pool days

This weekend we went to our pool and then to my moms pool. I say we and it was me and the big kids. Kyleigh is still deathly afraid of any and all water since the beach so she stayed home with Randy. However, he wants to go so she is going to have to get over it because we plan on spending LOTS of time at the pool this summer. It was so nice. I got a tan and felt wonderful to soak up the Vitamin D and the kids just had a blast! Ender had an accident at mom's pool and thankfully he was wearing a pool diaper, but it was still pretty sketchy. I felt bad since it was a neighborhood pool..... so we are potty training as we speak. It may be hard and long but he's almost 3 and it's time!

These are just two pictures from Saturday at our pool. I'm sure I will have a ton more as the summer goes along. Etta is doing really good swimming. She is finally putting her face in the water and we are trying to teach her out to tread water. I'd love to put her in swimming lessons but right now that's not an option. But she is doing wonderful without them!

still going

So I'm still going strong with veganhood. Monday was two weeks. I feel pretty good and it hasn't been that hard. However, I have not lost any weight :( I was really expecting to have a pretty big chunk gone this month so this is kinda upsetting. I have so much weight to lose too. I never thought I'd see myself as a fat person. So.... that being said I will not stop! I may introduce meat and cheese, but I will still be plant strong and still count my calories after the month is over. I have started working out and running this week so maybe next Monday I will see a better result on the scale.I will drop these 30-40 pounds.
I haven't been writing everything on the blog because frankly it's a little depressing! :)

Kyleigh got tubes

Well Kyleigh got her tubes today. She did pretty good. I was concerned because her surgery wasn't scheduled until 7:30 but we had to be there at 6am to do preop. This meant I had to wake her up at 5:30. Ok that concerned me too! But the big problem was that she couldn't have anything to eat or drink. My other kiddos this wouldn't have bothered them as much, but the first thing Ky does in the morning is drag me into the kitchen and want something to eat and drink. She actually did great. I think she just didn't know where she was and so there was more to look at. She got to wear the cutest little hospital gown and surgery socks ever though. Who knew they made them this tiny! I will say there's something extremely unnerving about seeing your baby being carried by nurses back into the operating room. But, once I was out in the waiting room it was only 10 minutes until the doctor came out and told me she was done and did great. The nurses then came and got me and the first thing they said was boy is she a firecracker. Yes we know! She was screaming and thrashing everywhere. I believe it was the anesthesia and  being scared. I think she was also in some pain. The crying lasted for about an hour and in about 3 she was totally back to normal. She has been great today. The only issue is she is walking around like a drunk sailor because her equilibrium is all off! Thanks for the prayers for everyone who said them :)

Ky and Ender today on the webcam

Ender praying

I just had to do a quick blog about Ender praying. We've been doing devotions at night and it's been really nice. Etta prays a lot for us which is always sweet and nice. Last night Ender said he wanted to pray. His prayer was the sweetest thing I've ever heard. He started saying Jesus is my good friend. Then said Thank you Jesus for God. Thank you Jesus for everything. Thank you Jesus for the mall. Thank you Jesus for the dinosaur museum. Thank you Jesus for me. In Jesus name Amen.

It was so sweet. I don't want to forget his first prayer so I wanted to jot it down really fast!

half marathon

So I've been really wanting to join a gym. Since this isn't really something we can allow in our budge right now, I decided I needed to have something to work towards or have a goal/plan. So, I am going to train up for a half marathon in Raleigh on October 21st. I start Sunday which is awesome because Sunday is the rest day! So my first run for this will be on Monday. I'll keep updating on that too! Maybe this will help with the weight :)

Ky at the ENT

Kyleigh had her appointment with the ENT doctor this morning. It went well. She is getting tubes most likely next week. We have hit that point that I am worried because I hate the idea of surgery but man I'd love nothing more than to have her fixed so I am happy! She still has ear infections so antibiotics are not working. She is on a very strong one now to try to clear them up until we can get in to get the tubes. I am concerned with the amount that she has been on them though and her immunities to them. Just praying that this works, because we want our happy Kyleigh back!

day 9

This morning I had a bagel with some honey. For lunch I was really bad and had some chips with guacamole. For dinner we had tacos. I had corn on the cob and I made my taco with a vegan tortilla, guacamole, black beans, lettuce, and black olives. It was SUPER delish. I didn't miss anything on it.

day 7 and 8

So..... I've lost 2 pounds. I'm thankful for something but really was hoping it'd be more in the 5 range. Anyway, Day seven I had a banana with peanut butter for breakfast. for lunch I had carrots with hummus. For dinner I got which wich. So excited to find out that there bread is vegan! For lunch I also had edamame. Yesterday I did not have breakfast. I had a glass of chocolate soy milk for breakfast instead. At least I was getting my calcium in. Then for lunch I had broccoli slaw salad. For dinner I had some grilled corn and some spinach salad with strawberries, blueberries, almonds, and poppyseed dressing. I did have a little margarita drink since we were grilling out. But I factored it into my calories :)

day 6

So today was good. I had a smoothie this morning. It was a banana, mango, strawberries, spinach, and coconut milk. It was delish :) Then I had some pit chips and hummus as a snack this afternoon. Before church I had a banana with peanut butter. And then for dinner I did get Qdoba. But I had it vegan. I got the naked veggie bowl. I did not put cheese or sour cream on it. BOO... :) It was good though! Mentally I was struggling today because I am just down that it hasn't shown up in the scale. I really was expecting a pretty big drop the first week and to have nothing is just bumming me out. So the goal is to only weigh myself on Monday's and just go from there. We are going to look at some gyms this week and see if there's any way to swing that. I really need to be working out and working out hard. I don't think my 30 minutes videos or jogs are going to do it.

5k

So I never posted but I did finally do a 5k with my best bud Laura! She helped me through it. Even though I did not go as fast as I wanted, I did not walk any of it. We are planning on signing up for another one soon and also I would like to train up for a 10k now!

Kyleigh's ears and weight update on kids

Real fast update. Kyleigh has had two more ear infections this month so we have officially made the call to go to the ENT. Her first appointment is Wednesday. I am just praying that we survive until then, because she is a mess! She walks around screaming all day and I am so happy we are finally treating this and I am praying that it makes all the difference. Kyleigh also is still at 19 pounds!

I did have Ender weighed and he weighs 25 pounds and is 36.5 inches tall. Ender is doing pretty good. I think we really need to get him into a preschool next year to give him some interaction and activities.

day five

Well, I've decided to not weigh myself again until at least Monday. I have not lost anything, and it is kinda bumming me out. I was certain I'd drop a good five pounds in the first week. Anyway, this morning I did have some carbs, but I had a whole wheat bagel with some honey on it. For lunch I had my leftover Chinese, and then for dinner we had edamamme, BBQ, asparagus, and a roll. My BBQ was soy from trader joes. It was also only 120 calories compared to the 270 that the pork was. The Chinese was soy as well, and I thought it was fantastic, I did not have the same feelings about the BBQ. I did have some pretzels for a snack as well. With the carbs, I went over 1200 calories for the day and ended up somewhere in the 1400. Blah! I do need to drink more of my soy and coconut milk because I did not get enough calcium yesterday. I got enough protein, but calcium was a no go! I gotta say though so far this hasn't been any big deal. I know it will get harder but it's been good so far!

day four

So today was good. I have not worked out at all this week and I really need to get on that. I know that will help a ton with the losing the weight, but I just haven't had it in me. Today I did not eat until lunch. Not a great thing but Randy and I decided to go walk around the mall after we dropped Etta off at school and I had not eaten before hand and forget getting something when you are out that's vegan unless you are at Whole Foods or Trader Joes. So I had my veggie wrap when I got home. Then for dinner we had our Chinese meal from Trader Joes. The rice is vegan to begin with so I just made it with vegan butter instead of real butter. I also bought veggie dumplings instead of pork. I then bought the chicken for Rands and the kids, and Trader Joes had come out with a meatless form of their chicken so I ate that. I have to say it was delicious! I enjoyed it just as well. The dumplings were missing something for sure, but they still were not bad! However, with only that being what I ate today I was still at my caloric intake. Man that sucks that I just can't eat anything! This morning I weighed myself and I have only lost.2 pounds. Really hoping that changes soon. Again I don't know how much I can hope for without seriously hitting the work out. I feel good. I am craving my normal creamer in my coffee but other than that I haven't felt deprived or anything. Today I did feel a little weak while carrying Kyleigh walking. Since she only weighs 19 pounds I don't think it's that she's getting heavy. So my guess would be I need to up my protein intake.

day 3

Day three has been the worst so far. Today was a bad day in general though so in bad moods I often eat, so to not be able to eat any junk today was kinda hard. I was missing my normal coffee creamer but that's ok. Overall not a bad day! I had an apple with peanut butter for breakfast, one of my veggie wraps for lunch, and for dinner we had salad. The kids and Randy had chicken on there's but mine was just lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, avocados, and almonds. I also used goddess dressing which is vegan! I did great on water intake today as well. I did have some pretzels for a snack tonight but not that many. I am under calories. If I start working out again (which I am) I am going to have to find a way to up some calories because I will not be getting enough! This might be a good thing though. Really praying that this is what my body needs to lose this yuckyness!

Kyleigh's ears

So today while I was at my mom's Kyleigh started getting a fever. I took her home and by the time I got home and took her fever it was about 104. I took her to the doctor and sure enough she has another ear infection. We are being referred to the ENT. The doctor said we should get a call tomorrow and they will set up an appointment and we can most likely plan on getting tubes next week. :/ I am sad, and a little concerned since it is a surgery and I can't stand the thought of her going under, but, she needs them. So I am thankful for modern medicine and thankful for insurance.

day two

Ok, so no picture again. However I did get a new scale because ours wasn't working correctly. Turns out the number was even worse than I thought. I've got a long way to go! I thought I was better than I was. Anyway, that was a little bit of a depressing way to start the day. I would LOVE to lose 40 pounds, however I will be very happy with 30. This morning I had a banana and almonds. Lunch I had my veggie wrap with hummus. Dinner we went over to my brothers house and everyone was having hamburgers. I had bought some veggie burgers at Trader Joes and was planning on eating those, however when I went to grab one today I noticed they had eggs in them. So, I had lettuce with a tomato and guacamole! I also had some watermelon, and some broccoli slaw. For snack when I got home I had hummus with carrots. I came in under 1200 calories but I never put in my creamer so I'm sure I was closer to that 1200. I haven't decided how often I am going to weigh myself. Part of me says wait until Monday and see what a week did, the other part wants to keep weighing everyday! I will try to get pictures tomorrow. Since I have so much to lose I am praying this works this month and then I will keep it up for longer (but still just going for the 30 days.)

day one

Day one of vegan-hood has been pretty good. I had oatmeal this morning, a veggie wrap with hummus for lunch, and then spaghetti for dinner. I did have bread with dinner too, it was vegan, but that was a lot of carbs. This will most likely not help with the losing the weight. I did put everything into my fitness pal though and I am on track for calories today to lose weight so here's hoping. I have had nothing with animal in it today! Even my coffee had soy creamer. There were a couple times today that I went to take a bite of something I should not have eaten. Both were when I was feeding the kids. I normally eat some of Kyleigh's cheese stick because she won't eat the whole thing and also for some reason I eat the ends of her hot dogs (this doesn't really make sense) but I do, and both of those times I had to stop myself. Other than that it was good. I did not take a picture but I will have Randy take a before one tomorrow. I did have a freezer pop before bed which again is sugar and is not going to help my weight loss. But even with the bread and everything I was at 1250 calories for the day. I also drank a ton of water again today which felt nice!

Beach Trip

Over Etta's track out we went down to the beach for two days. It was such a wonderful break to be out of the house and not worry about anything. Randy did not work and I did not do school so it was great. We went to Wilmington first and went to the aquarium. The kiddos loved it. I knew Ender and Julietta would love it, but we had no idea how much Kyleigh would love it. Kyleigh is our little animal lover. She sees a cat or a dog and she freaks out laughing and it will cash it. She has no qualms about sticking her hand on a dog or cat. So she stood at the window watching the fish and just pointed and laughed!

After that we went out for dinner on the beach. This was great in theory, but I need to keep remembering that eating out somewhere other than a fast food restaurant is just not for us right now! We also left Kyleigh's bottle at the restaurant so, Kyleigh is officially weaned off her bottle. She did not drink much at the beach but she is doing good now!

The next day was our beach day. Randy and I were stupid and did not put lotion on us so we ended up looking like lobsters, but the kids did ok with the sun. Kyleigh freaked out about the waves and they scared her to death. She spent 90% of the day in my lap with her face buried in my chest. Our day was also interrupted by about 15 jelly fish. Over all the kids had a marvelous time and it was wonderful to get away as a family.