October worries turned to blessings

My problem with anxiousness climbed for a good portion of October, but has leveled off the last several weeks.
Thank Goodness.
Here's a positive spin on my thoughts and a continuation of "1000 blessings" that I started several years ago.

421.  My worries have encouraged me to cherish small moments with the girls more. I might be hyperventilating at times, but I'm also taking the time to frequently hug my kids tight, smell the (usually) sweet scent of their hair, listen wholeheartedly to jokes that aren't funny, and force frequent kisses on their faces whether they like it or not.
422.  I've gotten to volunteer in Audrey's class several times over the last 2 months. I love getting to know her teacher and friends! One week we decorated pumpkins.

Audrey named her pumpkin 'Natalie' (the same name as the little girl sitting next to Audrey in the first picture.) They also wrote stories about their pumpkins and displayed them in the library.

423. That Audrey's biggest problem in life is this:
 
We awoke this morning to these signs all over the house. Apparently, she can't find her sticker album.

424. Matt getting to join us for Audrey's class Halloween party.
425. I've got a mother-in-law who is a great listener and encourager. My sweet Audrey insisted on walking up and down the hallway hugging me as I talked on the phone with Jimmie Kay. I *might* have been crying a little.
426. My sweet Julia actually hugging me when I saw her at school one day. I wish I had a picture with her and her friends, but then I really would have embarrassed the child. :)
427. A much needed visit from my mom 1 weekend
428. A much needed visit from Danny, Jimmie Kay, and Eli just a few days later (Pictures of both visits coming soon)
429. The feeling of comfort I get when I see my new states hanging on the wall.


And the last blessing that we're counting for today:
430. Getting to see Audrey present a recent project in class.

Blessings 411-420

411. Making Julia's "biggest dream" come true last night, we ate out... at Olive Garden. 412. Thanks to a gift card and a coupon, we paid less than $10 for our dinner out. Matt's flying to Kansas for the weekend to talk with the other half of the mission team for his summer trip to Spain. Before he left, the girls had to get some snuggle time in with him. I snapped a picture of blessing 413 - snuggle time

414. Audrey's pink eye in the picture isn't the dreaded "pinkeye". It's allergies and is bothering me 200 times more than it's bothering her. 415. Sweet husband - Matt took Julia to school this morning and ran a few errands before heading to the airport. On his way out of town, he stopped back by the house JUST because he forgot to kiss me goodbye. 416. Extra help preparing my 10 preschooler's scrapbooks this year. I'm heading up to church in a few minutes to take advantage of that extra help! 417. Audrey's excited to spend the afternoon at church. I've bribed her by agreeing to take along a Barbie movie we checked out of the library. 418. Beautiful spring weather this past week! 419. A new bike for the girls. 420. Audrey's goodnight kisses that often turn into a make out session. Man, that girl makes me laugh. :)

400th Counted Blessing!

391. Free 10x13 of the girls. It's from Walmart's Picture Me studio so it's not creative or artistic, but it's a free picture of my girlies and only took about 30 minutes of our time.

392. Audrey being fever free for over 24 hours now. She had a high fever (our highest tympanic reading was 104.6) from Wednesday night until Saturday morning. We got in lots of snuggle time, but it has been a long few days!

393. Audrey's fever being easily brought down by medicine. I did wind up spanking her the last 2 times we gave medicine :(

394. Fun times cheerleading this year (although Julia and I were both ready for the season to be over)

395. Audrey finally opening up and cheering with us a little last weekend.

396. I said I'd never make homemade pizza again, but since we still had pizza sauce in the refrigerator I decided we should try out biscuit pizza. It was much easier. :)

397. 2 successful "new to me" recipes Friday night. I made cheese grits and biscuit doughnuts - so good!

398. Audrey feeling good enough to come to Upward's closing ceremony this afternoon (good thing since Matt had something he had to do work related at the same time as Upward.) Here are the 2 of us right before Audrey fell asleep on my lap. She may not be sick any more, but her body is still extra tired!

399. Someone willing to video for me so that Matt could see Julia's performance. I wanted it for myself too since I couldn't watch just Julia during the show.

400. My Cheerleader Julia!

Yes, the above one is posed immediately after they finished. That's why Julia is the only one with poms up! Coach Mama had to get a still shot! The picture below is with a fellow Cheerio!

This may be the only time Julia ever cheers, and that's A-ok. (Just say "NO" to skimpy cheerleading outfits!) I just really enjoyed spending this time with her learning a little about something that was new to both of us.

351-360

351. A sweet husband willing to take the girls to the zoo on their last day of Christmas vacation. We decided to go ahead and get a membership. As long as we go 2 more times in the next year it will be worth it. We figured we can stop by on our way to or from the beach!

352. A $13+ money maker at Rite Aid this week!

353. A sweet daddy/daughter pic

354. The cuteness of my 3 year old. She's been extra sassy this week (both in a good and bad way!)

355. A special kiss from Audrey. Audrey and I welcomed 2012 spending the night on the couch because she had a stomach bug. She really wanted us to snuggle, so we threw the back cushions off the couch and slept next to each other. She did a really great job of waking me up to get her the "throw up bucket" when it was needed. After one of those times, we had just snuggled back down and closed our eyes when I felt the sweetest, most tender kiss on the forehead. Oh. I melted. What a way to say "Thank you. I love you."

356. Matt having a friend to help change the Jeep's alternator last Sunday. Can you imagine if I had had to "help" him???

357. A fun (and long!) day of cheerleading today. Julia and I loved spending time with and getting to know our team!

358. Eating lunch with an old preschool friend who cheers on another squad.

359. A birthday party for Audrey and Matt to attend while we were gone today. I'm so glad AK had something special to do too! The birthday girl is a special friend from both church and preschool! Her dad is the one who helped Matt with the alternator.

360. The kindness of the birthday girl's mom to send Julia a treat bag even though she didn't attend. Matt and Audrey also came home with a plate of leftover cake balls. Yum!

A Tennessee Christmas

341. Safe travels to and from Tennessee.

342. Generous family spoiling all 4 of us!

343. Meeting the girls' first (and so far only) 2nd cousin, Adele Coplin! These are the Bowman great grandkids.

344. Spending time with 4 of the 6 great grandparents.

Meemaw Taylor

Granddaddy Bowman

345. Managing a calm Christmas Day complete with a nap for 3 of the 4 of us. Julia was the only one able to stay awake!

346. The girls' pride when getting to help in the kitchen.

347. Seeing my brother! This is 2 times in 1 year!!!

I sure do wish we saw them more often. I feel like a mere acquaintance with my sis-in-law Kelsey. She's perfectly sweet, I just don't know her well. Ok, back to the blessings...

348. Getting to spend time with the sis-in-law I do know well, Amy, and her family. I'll post pics of them as soon as they Facebook some - HA! Right now, the only picture they've posted from Christmas has been this:

I'm not sure why, but I love that pic. Thanks Jacob!

349. Mammy willing to visit us in a few weeks to deliver the rest of the presents. She'll be here for my birthday (we won't yet speak of the number) and to see Julia cheer!

The last night we were in town, Julia woke us up at midnight with her screaming. Seconds later she threw up all over the place (including all over Audrey!). She was sick all night and all day as we were traveling back to Alabama. Not fun! I thought we'd moved past all this, but Audrey's been sick today. Let's hope the sickness stops with her.

Blessing 350: 2011 ending with a lot of wonderful memories left behind.

Happy New Year!

Blessings as Therapy

I'm on day 3 of fighting a cold, the first 2 days of which I couldn't stand for more than 90 seconds at a time without feeling faint. I still can't swallow without grimacing. My heads been hurting like crazy, and my neck has been painful to move. I still had to go to church Sunday despite my feeling bad because my oh so sweet husband kept insisting that I was being a wimp. (Although, somehow, on our Christmas Saturday, my wimpy self played with the girls, bathed the girls, painted 20 little fingers and 20 little toes, and made dinner all the while Sir Matthew took his 2nd nap of the day... just saying)

I'm feeling old because my right knee has really been aching the last few days too. I've visited "webmd" multiple times reading up on cold vs. flu, osteoarthritis, brain tumors, and meningitis. (I might have a dramatic tendency.) I am spending Monday - Wednesday as a single parent since Matt's working a couple of 18 hour days and a 12+ hour day before we leave for TN Thursday. And did I mention that Julia asked me last night why I had all those zits on my face?

You could say that my week hasn't been very enjoyable thus far, and you'd be right. Tonight, what set me off in a heap of tears was my car not starting. Great, just great.

The tears have dried now, and I'm hoping that my typing all this up doesn't set them off again. I'd love to go into the whole rant I have about stuff that's bothering me, but what I think would be more therapeutic would be a listing of blessings. So, let's go!

331. The girls, somehow, didn't notice my tears tonight. They played together nicely for the worst of it, and after I'd calmed down, they didn't look at me close enough to see my splotchy face.

332. The excitement the girls get of having a campout in the living room. We're having one tonight.

333. Being loved all the way to "eighty-one" or "ninety-two" or what ever other number the girls come up with that's "a lot"!

334. Not being stranded or in a hurry to be anywhere when we realized my car wouldn't start tonight.

335. Christmas break. I have my Julia back for a few weeks!!!!! I miss that girl when she's in school.

336. Health. Despite my dramatics on webmd.com, I don't think I've actually had to go to the doctor because I was sick in over a decade.

337. Chocolate from our stockings. It's needed tonight. (Although that won't be good for all my zits or my feared osteoarthritis! BTW. I had 1 bump on my face. 1!)

338. Snuggling with the girls at night.

339. Snuggling with the girls during the day.

340. An excuse to sleep on the couch (we're camping out, remember?) so that I can fall asleep watching TV and not have any quiet time to let my mind think. Thinking tonight would not be good.

Blessings 321-330

* 2 computers in the house so both girls can play online games at the same time

* Audrey making literary references. She insists she's a "hungry caterpillar" and needs snack after snack after snack...

* Extra time in the carline to spend making pom poms! I had 14 to do and they each took about 30 minutes.

* The excitement building for our first cheerleading practice tomorrow. Julia's cheerleading for Upward Basketball and I'm head coaching her squad. Saying I have no cheerleading experience is an understatement, but I'm definitely getting into the girly spirit of it!

* Our fabulous Christmas tree! (Can you believe Matt was the one who started pulling the tree and decorations out Thanksgiving morning? I didn't even ask (tell) him too! I was planning on doing it Friday instead. The girls had a lot of fun looking at the ornaments and decorating the tree. Thank goodness we had these little people to help us out by crawling under the tree.

* The fun of having our visitor from up north joining us again - Elfie!

* Cute Christmas dresses to wear

* A clean house thanks to our hosting life group this week.

* The cuteness of Audrey's snores.

* Homemade Christmas cookies

Blessing 311-320

311. A family birthday celebration for dear Matthew.

312. New black boots that arrived in the mail last week and that make me feel extra stylish and confident (no easy feat! ;) pun not intended! Thanks Mom)

313. Laughs from Julia repeatedly saying that a kid in her class was "extended" (suspended)

314. Julia's excitement from getting to ride on the school bus for the first time. The Kindergarteners walked over to a garden near the school today but a bus drove them back b/c it started raining. She probably traveled 1/4 mile in the bus, but she was thrilled and kept telling us that she didn't have to have a seatbelt!

315. Audrey posing for a cute picture with me! She doesn't always like to pose.

316. Matt getting to stay for the Feast after Audrey's program. We thought he'd be joining Julia for a special Thanksgiving meal at school, but I messed up the date for that. There wasn't a conflict after all.

317. Audrey singing and participating in her program today. After a meltdown at VBS Family Night this summer and a dress flapping/no singing Graduation program this Spring, I didn't quite know what to expect from her.

318. Audrey really enjoying her friends from Preschool. Tommy is in this picture with her.

319. Julia's willingness to share a couple of hats she made this week.

320. 5 days of rest. We won't be seeing extended family at Thanksgiving this year :( but we will enjoy our Bowman family foursome time!