Our life...September version

Hi there! Did you miss me??? We are still alive over here and busy, busy, busy! Life these days is both wonderful and challenging. I'll fill you in on the good, bad and ugly.

Starting with the ugly...Jayne is three going on 13 and we butt heads every.single.day. From cleaning up after herself to what she wants to wear to sassy little attitudes. I am told *ahem* that she is very like her mother was at this age. And for the record, Mom & Dad, I am so sorry for my three year old self. Ugh! It used to be easy to get ready for the day. "Here you go Jayne, you're wearing this today" to "Pick this outfit or this outfit" to "I dont wannnnnnaaaaaa wear that momma"...."but it has BUTTONS on it!!!!"..."It's waaayyyy to big!"...."it doesn't MATCH!" {for the record her idea of "matching" is color on color. She MUST wear a pink shirt with pink pants with a pink bow and pink shoes...all different shades mind you}. I am picking my battles but I put my foot down to wearing the same dress outside of the house three days in a row. Trust me, I know there are bigger frustrations and issues out there and I'm not diminishing what other people go through or deal with medically/emotionally. I'm just explaining what our struggle is now. I mean this girl will have a knock down, drag out hissy fit over what she wants to wear (or not wear). She's three, she knows what she wants, when she wants it and how she wants it. And she doesn't get that life doesn't work that way. {Dont we all feel the same though, even as adults??} This is hard. I struggle daily with how to discipline and set boundaries and still allow her to explore her feelings and emotions and have opinions. But I am learning to pray, take deep breaths, count to 10 for a mommy time out and read between the lines of what she is trying to tell me. I love her independent soul and her desire to do things her way. I do not accept the sassy, meanness that has begun to rear its ugly head. I will put my foot down when she is not caring towards others, respectful of others. There is a line...we cross it daily, but we always try to bring her back to the other side =)

The bad...we are in allergy season again. What this means for us? August-November and then again February-May are the hard time for "wheezers". We still dont know/think Savannah has asthma, but allergies definitely take a toll on her little system. And it changes on a dime. She was fine one day and the next woke up in the morning a wheezy mess and we were doing breathing treatments every 3 hours . I am proud of myself. I was so close to taking her to the ER. I just cant stand seeing her have any issue. But we just stuck with the treatments and watched her and wouldn't you know, the next day...she was fine! She still has a little cold, but its not wrecking havoc just yet! We refilled all her scrips and have everything on hand to help her as she needs it. Poor little thing and she is such a trooper with the treatments. She even holds the face mask on her own now.

The good...oh, the good! I love my family. Jared and I are going through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church. The thing we argue about most is finances and we have learned so much in the three weeks since we started this class. But most importantly its helps us communicate more in all areas of our relationship. The girls are growing so fast. I swear both of them just had growth spurts. all of a sudden they are both taller than kids who used to be taller than them. I didn't notice it until this week when I was like "Wait a minute,wasn't Jayne smaller than Calla? Now she is two inches taller!" Crazy how they grow overnight it seems! Jared's job is going really well....I'm doing more work for a friend of mine and bringing in some money for the family which makes me feel like I am contributing. I'm in MOPS & a wed. morning Bible study, both which I love. And I began my craft club which is once a month at our house. I had my first club last week and had 14 people come! It was great and I just pray more people keep coming. Its fun for me to do with other ladies but I also get to make a little side money to help fund my own crafting addiction =) I love where God has us in life right now. And I love Fall. The weather has changed and we can have our windows open finally. Starbucks has pumpkin spice lattes again... you know that's when its truly fall, lol!

Life is just good. Here are some picts of our life this month.

The mess we make during the day...then clean up b/c this would make daddy cringe =)

 Sister bonding time

 Family bike rides

 Walks with our babies

 The bike we bought from a neighbor for J's Christmas present. One of my old coworkers is fixing it up and "blinging" it up =)

 We borrowed our neighbors bouncy house when we had some friends over for a cookout. 

The girls loved it!

 Sissy being silly

 Chillin' with daddy

 J loved Barnabas. Isn't he the cutest little guy?!!

 Crafting with the girls

J packing for her first sleepover (S & I stayed too since Jared was out of town. 

 We had dinner with C & G before heading over for our sleepover

 S loved sucking salsa off chips =)

 Breakfast after the sleepover. J wanted to sleep in the same room as Kate but kept waking her up and being noisy so I moved her to another room. She eventually fell asleep then I put her i my room when I went to sleep in case she woke up in the middle of the night. I didn't want her freaking out and waking the whole house up. It worked well other than J waking up at 330am. She was so chatty!

 The four sweet girls

 After I got J dressed Brooke realized Calla had the same dress so we dressed them alike. They loved it! See how tall Jayne is now??? She used to be the same size or a little smaller. Crazy!