MIA

Sorry I have been MIA- missing in action.  I have tons of stories and pics to post.  And really, since I have a zero following,..this is all for my own memories and joy.
I have been enjoying just reading in my spare time.  Reading the Bible and reading books and more books.  It has been amazing.  And my soul has been refreshed, energized and renewed!
But before this story slips my mind...I wanted to record it.  Then I will be back with pics...I promise.  Cross my heart...

Yesterday at Kroger the kids decided to play the Dean is the dad-Ella is the mom-and Mom is the grandma- game. If you don't know they play this daily,...numerous times.  It is absolutely adorable and I love to watch them.  So anyways....back to kroger....I am pushing them around and not aware that they are playing this game, Dean addresses me and says, "Granda,...". The meat guy in the meat section looks up at me in the down the aisle a ways. He is trying to decide if this is true and is apparent that he is accessing my age. Too far away to explain my children's favorite game...I just turn to the meat and look down. "Yup." I say quietly under my breath and look for my ground turkey and then smirk ....

I love their pretend games and play times.  It is such a joy to me to watch them play together.  Al dressed up,..not dressed,.  They do both.
They usually tote around backpacks full of toys, pads of paper, pencils, crayons, books, favorite little art things we have made together....
Then on top of it they are dressed.  Ella is completely almost always dressed in anything OTHER than what I dressed her in that morning.  With tights on, a skirt on top, a dress over all that, then a shirt, a jacket or her furry jacket, and with a hat.  Oh,..and then there's all her jewelry and accessories.  Then socks that do not match and her dress of shoes.  She stands before me with her outfit, purse and bag in hand, and sometimes other things and she is beaming proudly at me.....pleading with her eyes to look at her and behold her beauty.
Then dean stands next to her with a bag, hat, a notepad and pencil in hand, phone stuffed in his pockets along with money and other toys.  And he always has his church or "handsome" shoes on.  He smirks at me proud to be going on an "abenture" or adventure with his sissy.

They are such a joy to me!
Thanks lord for my two little gems!

I have joined the club folks...

I am 30 years old now.  As of Sunday, December the 12th...I am in the club!
I wanted to say this in the world wide web....
..and that is ...that I am indeed a very blessed woman.  I felt the weight of God's tremendous kindess and love toward me this Birthday weekend.  My hunka burnin love threw me a surprise party- TOTALLY surprised me.  I was so blessed by his thoughtfulness and gift giving all weekend long.  I cried Sat morning when I read my besite's B-day card, I had a 2 hour nap on Sunday...and it snowed on my birthday.
I was filled to the brim with thankfulness.  And really, truly for the first time on my Birthday,..I was overwhelmed by God's goodness to me!
I will be back and blog more later....
Just wanted to throw that out....

Happy Halloween!

A week late...but here they are!  I was working on editing pics, and saw these download off my card.

I thought, if I don't post these now they won't get on the blog until christmas!

Enjoy!

love, Snow white and monkey

This is my favorite.  A damsel in distress. Love it!

 

This of course suits him very well.  He was so excited to be a monkey.  

 He loved the tail.  Just like he does on his real monkey doll.

 Ella Reese doing some Snow White princess dancing in the yard.

 We went up the road to our neighbors and good friends the Cornells.  The children adore their kids.  Here they are with Blaze in their driveway giving candy away.

 And here they are sitting with the bowl.  Eating all the candy, of course....

Summer Wrap Up Series

Trips to the Library have been a huge part of our summer. We go once a week and fill my library bag as full as possible.  This week we maxed out at 35 books.  That is the most you are allowed to check out.

Here's hoping we don't lose any of those books now!

Here are some pics of Ryan reading to Dean this summer...

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 Dean's sidekick, best friend, bunk mate, and snuggle partner.  His "bonkey" as he calls it.  All of his lovies are called " Bonkey, Bankey and Pacey".  Moneky, blankie and pacey.
Which ...why oh why did we not try to get him to kick his pacey habit like a year ago!!!?
He loves his monkey so much , he sticks it's tail in his ear.  I know...gross. 

 Poor thing...it is seen better days.  Actually his back had two huge holes in it recently.  I had to do a pull and tuck on him  to mend it. Now he has more of an egg shaped head.

 Ella Reese is progressing in her reading.  This weekend we were in the bathroom and she started to read the sign on the back of the bathroom stall..."Please put all feminine products in the waste basket".
But she only read a few of the words. Like please, and waste basket.  Still, I was like..."Okay, let's kick it up a notch at home!".

 Dean's summer kicks.  All nice and white and new.  It has been well loved this summer.  Not so white, or new looking anymore!

 One of my favorite pics of ER when she was almost 2yrs old.

 Ella writes on paper randomly...

 When we went to FL with the Finches, I drew out a schedule for Ella Reese so she would know what and where she would be for the week.  She memorized it.  And still has it in her keepsakes in her room.

 Ahh...so summer.

Summer Wrap Up Series

Here is the 2nd half of the Dalton visit back in August.

After Ella Reese's Birthday party, we spent a few days together.

And of course, when Chinese people get together,...we eat Chinese food!

These are some traditional Chinese steamed buns filled with meat that Lon made from scratch!!!

Props Lon!

An very impromptu family pictures for Doris.  It was hot.  It was August.  Neither of the kids wanted to participate in this family picture.  My kids were running around playing and jumping on the trampoline...furthering more the Dalton kids NOT wanting to take pictures.  But we did get ONE good one!

 Beautiful sweet Evie...

 Evie likes to jump with hand secure to the netting. It was so funny to watch!

 Girls night out!  We opted to get sushi to go and go to Sharon's to play board games.  The fellas were at my house with all the babies playing X-Box.
We went to Kalamata Kitchen and discovered they had just changed the restaurant and name to Anaba!
After sampling the food, Ryan and I still love it.  Hands down..some of the best sushi.
Well,..that night we ordered and they messed up our order.  So we got like double the food!  There was so much food...it was fabulous!  And it was all amazing!

Summer Wrap Up Series

Ha ha!  I laugh at the title of this post.  Then I blush.  It is Fall and I am posting Summer pictures.  I won't even tell you what month these pictures were taken!  

These are a few from my nephew Owen's Birthday Party. 

It was a fun time.  We had all the fun summer things going on.  Slip n' Slide, mud cake, silly bands, family.

  Super fun time!

 Dean obviously in this picture wanted something on his head too...

 Cousin!!!!!

 Brothers!!!!

 Accidents do happen...

 Mud cake!  And it was yumm-my!

 Chocolate face!!!

Making time to read...

I am making time to read. I had to find some new books to begin and I found two.
A biography on Charles Spurgeon's wife, Susannah Spurgeon and Carolyn Mahaney's Feminine Appeal.  Along with those two I am meditating on Isaiah 40. 
Both are outstanding books and I am daily affected by them.  Even reading a a page or two stirs my faith so much! I wish I could share every moment the Lord brought clarity and vision to my soul through these two books!  It has been very very encouraging.
But I did want to share one thing from Susannah S. 's biography that I think upon daily.

In the book she is suffering from extreme illness and in her diaries she writes,
" At the close of a very dark and gloomy day I lay resting on my couch as the deeper night drew on, and though all was bright within my cozy room, some of the external darkness seemed to have entered into my soul and obscured its spiritual vision. Vainly I tried to see the hand which I knew held mine and guided my fog-enveloped feet along a steep and slippery path of suffering. In sorrow of heart I asked, 'Why does my Lord thus deal with His child? Why does he so often send sharp and bitter pain to visit me?.."


These fretful questions were quickly answered, and though in a strange language, no interpreter was needed save the conscious whisper of my own heart. For a while silence reigned in the little room, broken only by the crackling of an oak log burning on the hearth. Suddenly I heard a sweet, soft sound, a little, clear, musical note, like the tender trill of a robin beneath my window.


..."Surely no bird can be singing out there at this time of night!"


We listened, and again heard the faint plaintive notes, so sweet, so melodious, yet mysterious enough to provoke for a moment our undisguised wonder. Presently my friend exclaimed, "It comes from the log on the fire!". And we soon ascertained that her assertion was correct. The fire was letting loose the imprisoned music from the old oaks' most inmost heart. Perchance he had garnered up this song in the days when all went well with him, when birds twittered merrily on his branches, and the soft sunlight flecked his tender leaves gold: but he had grown hardened; ring after ring of knotty growth had sealed up the long-forgotten melody until the fierce tongues of flames came to consume his callousness and the vehement heat of the fire wrung from him at once a song and sacrifice.


'Oh! Thought I, when the fire of affliction draws songs of praise from us, then indeed are we purified and our God is glorified! Perhaps some of us are like an old oak log- cold, hard and insensible; we should give forth no melodious sounds were it not fo the FIRE which kindles round us, and releases tender notes of trust in HIim, and cheerful compliance with His will. As I mused my soul found sweet comfort in the parable so strangley set forth before me. Singing in the fire! Yes, God helping us if that is the only way to get harmony out of these hard, apathetic hearts, let the furnace be heated seven times hotter than before!"

Is that not so beautiful to behold!  What a precious gem of truth!

Summer Wrap Up: Part I

This coolness in the air makes me look forward to all things Fall.  Leaves changing, morning and evening cool walks, long sleeves and hoodies, chapstick, Thanksgiving, Fall crafts, pumpkin candles, leaf jumping....I love it!  And the hint of Fall also reminds me that I have a bazillion summer pictures on my desktop...eek.

So I laugh as I title this post, because it all of a sudden made me recall that I did a similar post as well at the end of summer.  Ha ha...

So my goal is the wipe my slate clean, get all my summer pictures out and posted so I can welcome all the super fun Fall memories to come!!

So here is Ella Reese's 4th Birthday.  My older sister, Doris, and her family came in town to vacation for a few weeks and so happened to fall on ER's birthday.  It was such a blast!

The theme...all things having to do with water...

My week

On Monday Dean had a runny nose.  Uh oh...what is this going to be?

Tuesday it was a full blown out cold.  Poor guy. Then my mind thinks back to all the kisses we all (all 4 of us) shared.  The snacks we traded, the cups and sippy cups that got passed along.

Uh oh,..what is this week going to look like?!

I sit here typing this and both my ears are still slightly clogged...from who knows what.  A sinus cold I suppose.  And I finally, very happily, wave adios to a very quick streak of a cold that ran through me.

And if I think back to this week, I immediately see flashes of two sick kids clutching their lovies (blankies, pacey, monkey etc..) pleading me to hold them while I myself want to be held...but then I also see God's mighty dose of Grace he gave me as well.  It was not the most glamorous week.  

But it was a week where God supplied perfect grace for me, in a perfect portion for me, for each specific day that passed.  And I am a happy and contented woman because of it!

All these pictures are from three weeks ago.  When everyone was well.  I hardly took pictures this week.  And I am not sure if I would wanted to have documented it all anyways...

DIY Network is coming to the Prince house!

I am sure you have seen me mention DIY Network coming to renovate our kitchen.  Well, it is happening and we are still in SHOCK!
The show is called Run My Renovation and they are coming in a month to begin the renovation and filming.
Wow...did I really say all that?  Pinch me please! 
This is how the show works.  A room is chosen in a family's home.  And America (YOU) votes for what will be put in the new room.  Yup. You get to choose!


We are EXTREMELY grateful for this blessing to our family!   Follow the link below to see a video ( you have to check a tab above the picture of our kitchen that says VIDEO to see us talk about our kitchen.  Side note on the video and pics: They were scheduled to come at 1:00 to film our video and showed up at 9am!  I was on the couch in my PJ's, kids in PJ's, dishes all in the sink...house a MESS!  So I threw dishes in oven, dishwasher, sink, I had pool hair from swimming the day before and not bathing...it was crazy.  And the picture of me and Ryan in the kitchen I took at 9pm one night. They needed a pic asap, and Ryan had just gotten off work and we both look like "deer in a head light" face.  Fun times!!!)

So check out the link to vote...:
There is a box, to the right of a picture of our kitchen, that says VOTE with a check next to it.
Click "Vote. Enter and Win" and that will take you to the choices.

http://www.diynetwork.com/run-my-renovation/show/index.html


ANNNDDDD.....If you like ME more than RYAN ( my hubby), here are my #1 choices in the order they are shown when you vote. Oh and yes, you can vote everyday, more than once a day until September 17th! So get your vote on!
Thanks everyone! We are still in shock and very humbled to receive such a huge blessing!

1. Cabinets: Portrait Maple- Chiffon (Ryan is voting for Portrait Maple- Sedona)
2. Counter tops: Adobe Brown
3. Floors: Butter Run Oak
4. Sink: Deerfield Smart Divider
5. Faucet: Simplice: Vibrant Stainless
6. Appliances: Stainless
7. Paint: Latte
And at the end you get to vote for a Food Network Cooking set that we and someone that votes will win also! Have FUN and Thanks!!!!

Show will air for next season next spring, the 2nd episode. The renovation and filming will be Nov 1-3rd.
The first season is running right now.

Here are the pictures we submitted with our application. I took these during dinner time and thought the mess would help in getting us through.  But in reality, each day my counter tops do welcome such love from all kinds of clutter, art projects drying, mail etc...that gets littered across it.  It just shows that real life occurs here!

 Below: We have two of these bad boys!!!