Striving For

Things I'm learning and trying to do better

To find joy in the small things

To trust God with every area of my life

To stick to our budget

To be a better mom

To just let the house be a mess sometimes

To be a better wife

To pray often and passionately

To read my bible daily

To be a better friend

To be the best nurse I can be

To spend more quality time with my kids

To laugh more often

To exercise more

To drink more water

To appreciate every moment

To slow down

To tell my husband often that I appreciate him

To look for positives in my children

To not be so hard on myself

To look for God's blessings

I'm sure the list could go on and on…this is just what came to mind today! I wish I could say that I am just doing all of these things perfectly! Ha! And most likely I won't even be able to attain them all but that's okay! I'm learning to rely on God and his direction in my life and looking to Him for guidance!

Girl Time

This last weekend I was able to attend a women's retreat with a bunch of fabulous ladies! It was SO much fun!! I had such a great time. It was at a camp in a city about 50 minutes away set back in the forest. The weather was cool and the company excellent!

We had fun talking, eating, and of course shopping. The speakers and worship times were great. I felt God speak to me in so many ways. It was so great to spend time with other women away from family, kids and responsibility!

They had a gift basket Jamboree where they sold tickets and you could place them in an envelope to win the basket of your choice! My friend Kristy won an awesome basket filled with kids toys, games, puzzles and candy! She was of course very excited! Her kids were too! :)

We stayed in this little cabin that had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I had three awesome friends for roommates and we had such a great time together throughout the weekend!! You definitely get to know people a little better when you spend 24/7 with them for a few days! Good times!

The only bad experience I had over the weekend was when I got stung by a bee on my foot as we were walking up the steps the first evening to go in to the cabin! It hurt like crazy!! Other than that little stinging incident it was one of the best weekends I've had in awhile!

Trying

Things I'm learning and trying to do better

To find joy in the small things
To trust God with every area of my life
To stick to our budget
To be a better mom
To just let the house be a mess sometimes
To be a better wife
To pray often and passionately
To read my bible daily
To be a better friend
To be the best nurse I can be
To spend more quality time with my kids
To laugh more often
To exercise more
To drink more water
To appreciate every moment
To slow down
To tell my husband often that I appreciate him
To look for positives in my children
To not be so hard on myself
To look for God's blessings

I'm sure the list could go on and on…this is just what came to mind today! Hope you all are enjoying this last bit of summer! School starts for my two older kiddos tomorrow! This summer has gone by soo fast! The boys are excited about school starting but sad summer is over! I am looking forward to getting back to a routine but am not looking forward to the homework struggles, last minute projects (because my kids at least are famous for waiting till the last minute to tell us an assignment is due!), and running the kids to and from Soccer and Cross Country practice and every other thing they have going on! Life is about to get really busy again! Bring it on!!

Inspiring

As I have started this blogging journey I find myself visiting blog after blog and being awed and inspired by what I find there. I love seeing what other people are doing and how they are living their lives. It's so fun to get a small glimpse in to their worlds.

I found this blog that I won't put a link to because I don't know the person. But she has truly inspired me. She is a mom of triplets who almost died after having them. Today she posted about being yourself, her blog title was "Be You". This really hit home with me as I lately seem to find that I am comparing myself to other moms or my family to other families.

She talks about another family whose small kids were so athletic and could do amazing things and were always ahead of what her kids were doing and she felt amazed at this Mom's ability to teach her kids. This mother said that this was her thing, she grew up being athletic and it was something she was good at teaching her kids. The mom of triplets said that teaching her kids athletically was not her thing at all but that she was gifted when it came to teaching her kids life lessons.

It made me remember that God has given each of us individual and special gifts and that NO ONE can do it all. I may not be the mom that homeschools, or makes a perfect meal every night or has a spotless house all the time but I am ok with that. I respect those women and I realize that their gifts are not better or worse than mine but just different than mine. I know my assumptions about other families are completely inaccurate sometimes. I will think to myself "She is the perfect mom, her kids are just perfectly well behaved" but then I spend some time with her and her kids and see for myself that those kids aren't so perfect and that they fight and whine and complain just like mine do! : ) It's then that I realize that Satan is using my insecurities to make me feel inferior and worthless and to envy others.

"Let's go ahead & be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't."
Romans 12:6 (The Message)

I love this..."lets be what we were made to be"....God has made us who we are and his design is unique for us. The awesome thing is that we all need each other and God has placed us in a community to inspire and compliment each other with the gifts and abilities He has given each of us.

I pray that I can learn to appreciate the gifts God has given others and that I can BE who I am without enviously or pridefully comparing to another.

Things I love

I love God. I love grass. I love ice cream. I love being a nurse. I love friends that are true. I love my kids. I love camping. I love sleeping. I love brownies. I love lazy days. I love Mountain Dew. I love taking pictures. I love that I'm loving cooking. I love homemade gifts. I love how my son mispronounces words. I love the feeling of getting out of debt. I love watching my kids do things they love. I love my mom. I love cherry cheesecake. I love finding a good deal. I love naps. I love a good steak. I love my family. I love the ocean. I love rain and it's fragrance. I love doing puzzles. I love spontaneous "I love you's" from my kids. I love the woods and the smell of pine trees. I love chocolate chip cookies. I love getting put on call from work and not getting called in. I love when all the laundry is done. I love playing games. I love girls nights out. I love yellow roses with orange tips. I love awesome co-workers. I love planting flowers. I love when I can keep the flowers I plant alive. I love thunderstorms. I love finding what I want is on sale. I love a clean house. I love the funny things kids say. I love kisses from my kids. I I love plants in the house. I love card games. I love my husband. I love that God continually loves me no matter what. I love my cousins. I love snuggling. I love sleeping in. I love roasting marshmallows. I love how God works in mysterious ways. I love being a mommy. I love swimming. I love getting real mail. I love cool days. I love laughing so hard I cry. I love reading. I love clean cool sheets. I love my sons long eyelashes. I love Sleepytime tea. I love when I am able to witness healing. I love that my husband is also a nurse. I love daisies. I love being called mama. I love feeling productive. I love a truly good movie. I love an empty checkout lane at the store. I love starry nights. I love you if you actually read all of this. : )

The Story of The "Anginator"

Many of you who know me well know that I have this nickname...



I was given this nickname many years ago when I was working as a youth leader for the youth group at our church. One of the other youth leaders came up with it. I'm not even sure who it was or exactly why I received this nickname (I don't think I was acting like the terminator, but I WAS spending most of my free time with junior high and high schoolers, so who knows) but it stuck, and I still have this nickname today mostly because of the license plate above!

This license plate was given to me by a friend for my 23rd birthday. This friend was very sneaky and even went to the MVD and arranged it all and paid the special fee and I got this in the mail and it has been on my vehicle ever since.

Some people think that "Anginator" has something to do with Nate and I as a couple. Probably due to this...



But we both had these nicknames all to ourselves long before we were even dating. But it is pretty cool that "Anginator" sounds like it combines both our names. Like Ang 'n' Nate(r). Get it? Well for those of you who wondered about the story of The Anginator....there you go!

The Last 20

This year I decided to celebrate my birthday the day before my actual birthday. To celebrate the last day of my 20's. Well actually I did it because I was leaving out of town the morning of my birthday but it sounds more fun to say I did it on purpose. It was a fun night out with friends. Little man stayed the night at Grammy's house so Nate and I could have the night free to do whatever my heart desired.



We went to a yummy steakhouse in town that in my opinion has the best steak and baked potato ever! I love it! It worked out perfect for us because we also had just been given a gift card to this restaurant!



After dinner, because it was my birthday, I got to decide what we did for the rest of the night. Everyone had babysitters so we had the evening free. Much to the guys dismay we all went to see the movie Eclipse. I think they enjoyed it more than they let on, but of course they couldn't admit it to us! The girls had fun though, apart from the noisy kids and people who just couldn't stay in their seats. The seats were also very creaky because we went to the old theatre in town, so anytime someone moved or got up you would hear, creeeak, creeeak. It made for an entertaining movie experience for sure!



My friend Melanie made me a cherry cheesecake (one of my favorites!) for my birthday dessert so after the movie we all headed over to our place to dig in. It was very scrumptious! Doesn't it look yummy? Thanks Melanie, Rodney, Brian, Kristy and Nate for a wonderful "Last day of my 20's" celebration!

And thank you to the babysitters who took the kids for the night so the adults could go play!

A good time to start...

Yesterday was the last day of my 20's….yes….today I turned 30!! I thought now would be a good time to start a blog. I've been pondering it for awhile as I look at other blogs and love what I see. Just maybe someone would be interested in what I have to say? I've thought maybe my life was too boring and I wouldn't have enough funny/interesting/non-boring facts to write about….and this is probably true. However here I am...I hope to be able to share my daily adventures of family, work, children and life in general with my family and friends. Hope you enjoy the adventure!