SO Proud!!!!

I am in no hurry for Judah to grow up. Both of my boys, for that matter, but this is about my big boy. I nursed him until he was 12 months old and I was 3 months pregnant, he took his first step at 12 months, but didn't start walking until 14- I was quite content with carrying him, we converted his crib into a toddler bed after he turned 2 because he started climbing out. And, potty training? Well, we're starting that today. Starting about 6 months ago he would go pee-pee and poopy in the potty chair. Eric would encourage it, but I wouldn't. Not that I discouraged it, I just didn't push the issue at all. He was probably 100% ready and able to potty train, but I wasn't. It's inconvenient to have to run to the toilet, bring changes of clothes, etc.. but more than that it's just another step towards Judah becoming a big boy. I love having a big boy, but I miss my baby, too!


Yogurt for breakfast

This morning I put Judah in his big boy undies. He picked out red elmo ones! As he was eating breakfast he started going pee-pee in his undies a little bit. He immediately stopped and told me he had to go pee-pee. I took him in the bathroom, put him on his potty chair, and he finished going. I ignored the fact that he went on his chair (no biggie!), but made a HUGE deal about him going on the potty chair. Samuel and I clapped and cheered, and seeing as I didn't have any treats, I gave him a bite of his favorite mint chip ice cream.


Judah with his #1 Fan

After breakfast I got the boys dressed and ready and headed out to Kmart. (Not the same as my favorite store, Target, but much closer to our house). Our mission was to buy potty training supplies: apple juice and chocolate (for chocolate milk) because you're supposed to have them drink a lot, to give them lots of opportunities to know how it feels to go pee-pee, two toy motorcyles- one for Judah as a prize for the end of the day and one for Samuel (Judah insisted), a bag of m&ms as a treat each time he goes, a new sippy cup, and Superman big boy undies (picked out by Judah himself).


Happy Boy

When we got home I took off his pants and started doing something else. Judah came in and told me he went poopy in the toilet. I went in there and saw that, indeed he did, without even telling me he went into the bathroom and went all by himself. I made a VERY huge deal about that! He stopped and said, "It's a hotdog poopy." Too funny!


"my mommy loves me"

I took a handful of m&ms (suggested by a friend) and threw them on the floor like a pinata. The boys picked them all up and had fun with the poopy reward.


More fans

He went pee-pee one more time right before going down for a nap, with the total being (3) pee-pees and (1) poopy on the big boy toilet. YAY JUDAH!!!

**5 hours after posting a picture of Judah in his big boy undies I've already gotten over 50 views on flickr. I decided to put it on private, so if you want to see it, become my flickr friend.

In High School Again!

Saturday I went to a baby shower for two of my cell group girls, who are due only 5 days apart, in September. Laura, with a girl, on the 6th and Jodi, with a boy, on the 11th. So much fun! It has been so much fun to watch them from the time they both found out they were pregnant (a few days apart) to now, and very soon with little babies. So many of my friends either just had babies or are pregnant right now. Hard not to get baby fever! :)


Katie (top), Me, Laura (right) at the shower
I need to upload more of the pictures from the shower. Check flickr soon is you want to check them out.

This weekend is another encounter. Both Eric and I are teaching and we're trying something new- bringing the boys with us. It should be interesting. Both of our pastors' kids will be there. They have a 13 yr old son and an 8 (9?) year old daughter and my boys LOOOVVEEE both of them! They said they wouldl help watch the kids, which will be awesome. The boys are learning to be flexible, but moreso, I'm learning to be flexible. I know I love schedules and I love planning, so I'm learning to be more go with the flow. I think it's necessary with a 1 and 2 year old.

Speaking of being more go with the flow...we're doing youth now. I know I already said that. We are over the jr high and high school net and it is going awesome! I love those girls! I seriously feel like I'm in high school again. I remember calling up my friends and then going right over to their houses, spending the night for days and days at a time, and staying up SUPER late and sleeping in all morning. Those were definitely the days! Now, I get to relive it all (minus the sleeping in all morning, unfortunately). There are two girls that I have been getting super close to and spending time with. The other night I went and picked up one at 8:30pm and then headed over to the other's house. We went downtown for some frozen yogurt, then we drove 45 minutes away to look at the house that she is selling. Then, we drove back to her house to go swimming. Finally, after midnight, I was like, "I have to go home." So fun!

Consolidation Pictures

Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

Samuel eating some cream cheese at Panera on the way home


Part of the group of 70(!!) people from Zion


A few of our youth


Playing with Ken at the hotel


View all of the pictures here

AY, the Movies, Consolidate

So, does anyone remember Announcing Yours? We've totally put it on the back shelf while Eric has been building his pool business. He's up to about 35 pools and doesn't really have much time for AY stuff. So, I'm going to be taking over most of the work. Don't worry, Eric will still be doing the design work, but I'm going to put together the announcements and invitations and work more on marketing. Might as well, huh?

By the way, thanks for all of the sleep advice. I'm going to try it all out and see what works best for us. Today Samuel is at Eric's mom's house, so Judah went to sleep so quick and easy for me. I also took him swimming at the gym, which wore him out.

Samuel is with Ellie today because Eric and I took Judah to his very first movie at the movie theatre. At the theatre they have dollar movies every Wednesday and Thursday morning. This morning they showed Curious George. Unfortunately we had to leave about 45 minutes into the movie. The security guard and the museum owners son (I forget their names) would yell and Judah did not like that. He's never really heard yelling, which I'm extremely thankful for, and to hear it on the big screen freaked him out. He started crying and said he wanted to leave. Poor baby! So, we walked across the parking lots and got a Jamba Juice instead, then went swimming in both the cold pool and the hot pool. :)

This weekend we're leaving to go out of town again. We've been gone to much lately and it's so fun! This time just Judah will be staying at Eric's parents and we'll be taking Samuel with us. I'm sad to leave Judah, but I know he loves hanging out with Grandpa and Grandma and even tells me "I don't want you here!" when I go pick him up sometimes. (It doesn't hurt my feelings, I don't take it personally. I know he's just telling me he likes it there and that's a good thing!) I'm not sure how Samuel is going to do, but I'm sure we'll figure it all out. And, we'll bring lots of toys and snacks!

Last time we went to the Win Conference and this time it's the Consolidate. What "consolidate" means is to take care of a new Christian. Once someone gives their life to God we teach them how to have a relationship with God, how to read their Bible, we fast and pray for them, and take them to the Encounter. We're going to learn how to more effectively do that. I'm really excited! I'm also excited to do some shopping in San Jose. Yay!

Toddler Sleep

I'm excited about my new blog layout!

Right now it is 2:00pm and Judah is in his room playing. We've been having challenges with Judah's sleeping schedule. Basically, he doesn't want to sleep. He's so social that he doesn't want to miss a minute of fun. Whenever anyone is over or we're at someone's house he'll stay up as late as we're there without acting tired or fussy or grumpy. He's such an extrovert!

So anyway, he doesn't like to go to sleep. If he stays in his room he'll play with his toys. If I threaten him and make him stay in his bed he'll talk and sing. Even when Eric lays down with him it will take him up to an hour to fall asleep because he has fun with his Papa. When I lay down with him I close my eyes and don't respond to him...not as much fun.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get a 2.5 year old to fall asleep, I'm all ears! We've tried laying with him (which can be frustrating if you have things you need to do), spanking, standing at the door saying "lay down Judah." One lady suggested to Eric to get a kitchen timer and give him 10 minutes to play. When it goes off lay down with him for 5 minutes. When it goes off again leave the room and make him go to sleep by himself. Eric wants to give that a try.

I've already started looking up crib tents for our little climbing monkey (aka Samuel) to keep him in his crib for as looonnnggg as possible. It's so much easier when they can't get out. Samuel has no choice but to go to sleep. :)

Tucker and the Ministry

Congratulations to Jenna, Justin, and Elliana on the birth of Tucker Justin! Tucker is even cuter in person than he is in his pictures- if you can believe that. I'm so excited for them. Yay!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I don't always know what to say. Do people really want to hear about what I'm doing? (I guess it doesn't really matter. I can't wait to print out my blog and have it for ME to remember!) Really all I do is take care of my family and minister to women. I know I've said this before, but I feel so incredibly blessed to be doing what I'm doing. After changing my mind about a million times, I think by my senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I wanted to help people. Now, as a cell group leader, I get to do just that.

It's hard to explain exactly what a cell group leader is. A lot of times I just say leader. You could say pastor. I don't just lead a Bible study. I take care of the 12 women in my cell group and all of the young women in our youth cell. I spend time with them, encourage them, buy them things, take them out to coffee, am their friend, their mom, I discipline them, give them advice. These girls call me every single day. I hang out with them every single day. I'm a part of their lives, their families, their problems. They tell me things that they've never told anyone before. I am so blessed!

I'm glad I never became a psychologist. I've been to counseling. I've been to a lot of counseling and, to be honest with you, it never did anything. I paid $60/hr to talk, to stir things up, and then to go home. Sometimes I felt better after talking about all of it. Most of the time I felt worse, because everything would be stirred up, but nothing would be change. They gave me coping mechanisms, ways to deal with it, but that's about it.

Now when I'm counseling (I do a lot of counseling!), Jesus partners with me to heal hearts and change lives. Like Katie, like Laura.

So, that's what I've been up to lately. Seeing lives transformed. I guess it really is amazing, isn't it?

Lots of Pictures

Matthew and Katie praying for communion


The Bride



Cell Group Girls!
Top- Laura, Jodi, Baby Anabelle
Bottom- Me, Katie, Miriah


Vaughn, one of the guys from Eric's cell and Eric


Self-portrait of Samuel and I

Laura took so many good pictures of the 4th! Here are two:

Patriotic Judah


Look how cute Samuel is in the boat!

The story of Matthew and Katie

And a picture of me. Ha!

Ok, not just me. But, my whole family. Notice my hair? My makeup? My new dress?


Ok, about Matthew and Katie. Katie is one of my disciples and I'm so proud of her! I met Katie about 9 months ago. Her, her husband, and her son came to church a few times and I noticed them, but I never really talked to them. When I found out their son's name was Sam (Big Sam!) I went and introduced myself. I invited Katie to cell group and she said she wasn't ready to go. (At least she was honest). So, I got her phone number anyway and invited her over to hang out. Jenna and Elliana came over that day too and the kids had fun playing.

After Jenna left Katie shared a little bit about herself and her marriage and I conviced her to come to cell group. Katie did come that night. She came with an unhappy face, sad about her marriage that wasn't working, but not wanting to recieve anything that I was saying. The place she was in was basically self-pity. I felt really sad for her, but I also knew (from experience) that God could completely heal and transform her marriage. Katie kept coming to cell group and calling me for several months, but she stayed in the same place. She liked to talk about how horrible and hard her marriage was, but she didn't believe that anything could change. I stayed up at night crying for Katie, I fasted for her, prayed for her, interceded for her, stayed up late at night for long hours talking to her on the phone. I honestly felt like I was the one going through all of this. I had compassion for her, but I also learned my lesson about carrying the burden myself instead of giving it to the Lord.

Katie wanted to go to the Encounter. She signed up, paid her money, went to the pre-encounters (mandatory classes that get you ready for the encounter), but a few weeks before she told me her and Matt were getting separated and she was moving out. I tried to convince her not to do it, but it didn't work. Katie moved out. That's the bad news.

Good news- she still went to the Encounter. Katie experienced so much healing and deliverance and breakthrough. If you asked her, she'd say that biggest thing was forgiving Matt. For all that time she would blame Matt and justify what she was doing, but Katie finally took responsibility for her part and allowed God to change her. Amazing! Katie literally came back a different person. Her face was glowing, she was smiling all the time (we'd never really seen that), and she just looked so beautiful! And, it's not just me saying that, so many people commented on how Katie looked different.

One person that noticed that difference was Matt. Matt started to be more open to God. He'd come to church all along, but that was about it. He started really encountering God at church. He'd talk to the Pastor afterwards and be crying. And then Matt signed up to go to the Encounter. Matt was completely changed, transformed, healed, delivered, changed his name to "Matthew" and (I think I've mentioned this part already), proposed to Katie!!

Today is July 8th- their anniversary. In just a few hours Matthew and Katie will be renewing their vows. They met while working at the mall and would do drugs together, but they've done a 180 in their relationship. Today they're going to make vows to eachother, but most of all to God. They're going to allow Him to be the foundation of their marriage and family. They are different people in every sense of the word and I can't wait to see them renew their vows. I'll post pictures tonight or tomorrow.

Congratulations Matthew and Katie!!! (And Big Sam!)

The 4th and the Youth

We had a fun 4th of July, but unfortunately my camera was MIA. Laura took pics, so as soon as she sends them to me, I'll post them! :)

In the morning we went to the park with Laura, and several other girls from cell, along with their kids. We walked around the booths where Judah got an adorable patriotic star temporary tatoo on his bicep. We had a yummy picnic lunch. Then, we let the kids swim in the one mile. I worked there as a lifeguard and swam all the time. Some people think it's gross, but it's probably less gross than a regular pool. The whole pool gets completely cycled either everyday or every hour. I forget which (big difference, I know). I never, ever let Judah swim in there, but now I'm over it. I'm over my anal, fear thing* and they had so much fun (so did I!) and they're perfectly fine. Eric was working, which is why it was just the girls.

After the boys had a nap we headed over to our pastor's house for a bbq. Lots of our friends were there and so was my mom (which was sooo nice because she helps watch and play with the boys). Where we ate and did lots more swimming. We didn't end up watching any fireworks, which was fine. The boys have never seen them, so have no idea what they're missing. Maybe next year. And, they slept SOOO good that night from being completely wiped out with all of the sun and swimming.

Today was a crazy day! We met my dad and sister at Barnes and Noble, then we went out to lunch with them. We needed to be home in time for Eric to leave for work at 1:30. He was going to convert a pool from chlorine to salt water and said he'd be home in 1-1.5hrs. So, I tried to get the boys to go down to sleep and neither of them would! Eric's truck ended up breaking down, so they needed to call a tow truck. The tow truck got dispatched to an accident, so they needed to call another one. To make a long story short, the boys and I headed to the youth cell net at 7 and Eric still wasn't home. It was over at 8 and Eric still wasn't home. He finally showed up at the church at about 8:30pm. Craziness!!!

By the way, Eric and I are now the leaders of the youth net. It is the jr high and high schoolers. We're super excited to pour into the youth again. We were doing it when Judah was first born and now here we are again. We are in the process of building a full on youth service every Saturday night with a rock band, dance team, and drama team. We are also building a 12 team, or team of leaders, who will lead the entire youth net. Right now we are starting with a Saturday night cell. I think we have between 10 and 12 that have come so far. Exciting!


*I used to be really anal and it was all based in fear. Every Monday after cell I would go completely crazy washing and sanitizing all of the toys, door knobs, bathrooms, etc.. and changing all of Judah's bedding. Phew! That was a lot of work and I'm really thankful that fear was broken off of me at the re-encounter.