Thursday, December 31, 2009

Here we go 2010!

Sometimes all it takes for me to put things into perspective is to watch a movie. Sounds crazy huh? P.S. I Love You did just that for me last night. BJ's brother David is here visiting for the week and they had taken over the TV to watch football every night. So last night I let my bedroom become my 'get away' while I watched this movie and balled my eyes out and also laughed really hard.

This past year 2009 has brought so much joy and happiness and I can only hope and pray that 2010 does the same. God has brought us so far this past year. Starting with having our biggest blessing ever Daivney Rose. He has allowed for BJ to get promoted which we had been praying about for quite a while. He has put me at peace that being a SAHM and that it is where I need to be. There is so much more that God has blessed us with this past year the list just goes on and on.

I tend to be a like the character 'Holly' a lot of times. Worrying about our 'future plans', getting stressed out about the here and now times. I realize that I need to stop doing that because only God can control both the future and the now. It's in His hands. There is so much I can say on this but basically I just want to say that there are so many lives out there that are taken away so quickly and we have to realize that we aren't guaranteed tomorrow. I need to realize this everyday. Don't take our beautiful daughter Daivney for granted, don't take family for granted, and most of all, don't take BJ and his love for me for granted. For tomorrow does not guarantee that I can tell him I love him then. When there is a phone call...listen and enjoy, when there is laughter, laugh along, and when there is a kiss or a hug....embrace..embrace...embrace and savor those moments.

So my resolution for 2010....I need to stop being the worry wart I have been for the past 25 years. It is in God's hands and I need to leave it there. He has me in the palm of His hand and He will not leave me nor forsake me. God I give this year 2010 to you....help me to love more, listen more talk less, and enjoy all your blessings and give you the glory!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

It's already December!!

Hello to all! Sorry it has been quite a while since our last posting. Man where has time gone? October flew by, then it was Thanksgiving, and now we just got done celebrating Daivney's 1st birthday. Was it a year already?
Thanksgiving was so great! We spent the day with our good friends the Zermeno's. They have a daughter that is 7months names Isabella. She is so adorable, her smile is contagious! She is already crawling, so Daivney had alot of fun playing on the ground and also playing peek-a-boo with her. Nate's sister Ashley and her husband Dusty and their daughter Eve were also there. Eve is I believe almost 4 months. That little girl is a ham...so so cute! You put the camera up to her and immediately a huge smile comes across her face. Then there was also another couple there whose names were Anne and Thomas. They were super nice too. And there was another Air Force guy named LG who was there too. It was such a great day. We all brought a little something. I was in charge of the potatoes, breads, cornbread and pops. I made crock pot potatoes which turned out to be a big hit! Tab made the turkey, stuffing and gravy. Ash made the pies and green beans. And Anne made this super yummy sweet potato side dish that was sooooo good! It can caramelized pecans on the top...oh my delicious! We had a big feast.
Tab and Nate made everyone feel so welcome and basically home away from home for the holiday. It was so nice to be around friends who we consider family and to just share that day with each other. We told stories of what our own families do and also were able to go around the table telling what we are thankful for. It was a wonderful day of relaxation and full tummy's! So thanks again to Nate and Tab for hosting and helping make that day so wonderful for everyone.
On to December....
We got the tree up the night after Thanksgiving. BJ and I had Christmas music playing while we put the ornaments on and got it looking all 'pretty'. There's something about having a Christmas tree in our house at Christmas time..just makes everything much more 'homey'. The next morning we brought Daivney down to surprise her with the fully decorated tree. Her expression was what we were hoping for. She just looked it over top to bottom:) It was great to see how excited she was about it! This year once again we are not able to go home to Iowa to spend it with our families, so we will be Skyping that day. Thank you techies for inventing Skype...it's such a great way to keep in touch with our families!!!
Onto December 3...Daivney's 1st birthday!!!! What a great day. BJ and I got up together that morning and went to get Daivney out of her crib. We serenaded her with 'Happy Birthday to you' and gave her hugs and kisses. She was loving it. We let her wake up a little bit before we dug into the day. Mid morning we brought her presents down and let her dig in. The night before we opened her presents from Grandma and Grandpa Koele over Skype. She got a block set and also a learning toy. She is having lots of fun with both! BJ and I had gotten her a couple outfits, books, kitchen food and a new kitchen set. The kitchen set was by far the best gift. She was so excited. Climbing all over it right away and using her food. She loves to be in the kitchen when I'm in there so we thought this would be a good way for her to be entertained while I'm working around in there. We spent the rest of the morning playing with those toys and then she took a short nap. After that BJ installed her new carseat in the car. That is something wild...seeing your baby girl looking right at you when you turn around! Those big blue smiling eyes just staring right at you:) We took her to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Then ran some errands, and spent the rest of the day at home just enjoying each other.
The night of her birthday she got to open gifts over Skype with Grandma and Grandpa Rounds. She got some clothes from them and some new jammies. That night she sleep like a 'baby'. Such a great day. I'm so thankful the Lord blessed us with such a wonderful daughter. She can make you smile, cry, laugh so hard your cheeks and tummy hurt, and she sure knows how to make you love harder. I love that baby girl.
The next day...Friday....we ate supper at some church friends' house and not more than an 1hr 1/2 later after we were home and she was in bed we heard her 'spill' her supper. BJ and I both ran upstairs to see poor Little covered in the yuck. I felt so bad! BJ grabbed her and stood in the bathtub while she finished. This is her first time being sick ever. It was sad to see her so sad and scared! We got her and her bed cleaned up, got her some water. And I just rocked her for a good 45min while she fell asleep. That night she just moaned and groaned while she slept. I knew she wasn't feeling good. Saturday.....she got sick 2 more times that day. By the way Saturday was the day she was supposed to have her 'big' birthday party. We had to call our friends and cancel..hoping to reschedule later this week. Totally bummed, but we want Daivney feeling top notch and not getting the other little girls sick. So BJ and I spent the day in our jammies too just loving on Daivney. By night time she was doing better...back to her old self. Now she has a bad runny nose and her eye is real watery so I think she is getting close to cutting another tooth. I just hope she gets better soon...I don't like seeing her so sick. We're hoping it was just a food/formula issue. Today is Sunday and she is back to her normal nap and mood too. Thank you Lord for that:)
Other news......
This has been a big month and it is only December 6!!!!!!!!!!! At the beginning of the month I was supposed to take a course for doing in home daycare here on base. Well I attended the 1st day and came home telling BJ that I didn't feel right about it. There were rules and regulations that I didn't agree with and that we didn't want to bring into our home. So if I can't follow the rules I shouldn't be doing it. So we prayed for God to open another door for us and show us that his plan is much greater than ours. That night at 11:45pm BJ came running into the bedroom while I was sleeping, jumped on the bed and said, "I GOT PROMOTED!!!!". Now if that isn't God saying 'Trust me and see what I can do", then I don't know what is. I am so proud of BJ. He has worked really hard at his job and at trying to show his superiors the type of man and worker he is. I am so proud of him. It is so nice to see him be rewarded for his hard work. Thank you Lord for opening that door!
Well....I hope I haven't bored ya'll to death...I suppose if I have you wouldn't have read this far;) That is pretty much all that has been going on with our family! Hoping to get Daivney's 1st birthday celebration in this week...we have 2 cakes sitting in the freezer right now for it and they are calling my name!!!
Thank you Lord for blessing me with a loving healthy family. I realize there are families out there who are struggling because of sickness and I pray that you will heal them. Thank you Lord for placing our friends in our lives as you have, we are so thankful for them. Thank you for blessing us with our families back home and that they support and love us so much too. We LOVE them more than anything. Also thank you Lord for showing me that your plans are much bigger and better than I could ever imagine, I am grateful for you showing that to me/us this week. I also ask that you will be with fellow soldiers that aren't able to go home this Christmas that you will be with them and place somebody in their lives during the holiday that can be their 'family' away from family. <3

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Right place...right time

Back in early May, I made a quick run to Walmart with Daivney while BJ was working. I was in a crazy hurry, the kind of hurry when you are flying down the aisles just doing a quick grab at whatever item you need and flying off to the next aisle. Not paying any attention to anyone around you, and just trying to get in and out as fast as possible. I also try to be so quick when I get groceries at Walmart because by the time I get all the cold stuff and am done standing in line, the cold stuff isn't so cold anymore. So it ends up being a race through walmart to get everything in the cart and paid for and out of the store back home into the fridge before it gets too warm. Well this day in particular evidently God didn't want me rushing. He had better plans.
I had all my groceries stocked up underneath Daivney's car seat that was balancing on the cart. We were in line. Two women were ahead of us but they didn't have hardly anything in their cart, so I figured PERFECT! We'll be out of here in no time! Uh..or not. The women in front of me looked friendly, blond hair, smiley, a little shorter than me. She turned around and started talking to Daivney...and of course Daivney being the super social little girl she is did her baby talk back to this woman. I never got this woman's name, so for the sake of my story we'll call her Sue. Well Sue continued to talk with Daivney, which lead to talking with me. She asked me questions about Daivney and then started talking about her own child. She went into a story of how her boy is in Middle School and is have a lot of problems. In my head I was like 'oh good grief! I don't have time for this!'. But I kept the smile on my face and asked her what kind of problems. She went on to tell me how she has had to take him out of the school system he was in out here and put him in a different one. They live in a town that must be right on the county line, so the kids have a choice to go to one school in one county, or another school in another. She had to switch him from the one to the other...which she thought would be better for him. He was having a lot of problems at the first school like kids making fun of him, being bullied, poked fun of, etc. So this new school she put him in she thought would be better for him. Sue told me that her ex husband is a cop in the county, so she really didn't think that he would have problems at this other school. She also said that her boy didn't have a big mouth to get all this bad attention for either. Well nothing changed when she put him in this new school. Sue contacted the school system to tell them about her son coming home and the stories he was telling her. They took no action. Sue asked her son's teachers to keep an eye on him during school hours because she was scared for him by what he was telling her. They did nothing. She told me at that time that if it continued she would take him out of school and home school him. She said it would put them in financial trouble, but if it meant helping her son she would do it.
By this point Sue had all of her groceries in bags and in her cart ready to head out to her car, and I was loading my groceries on the runner. I had listened to her story, and gave her smiles, and head nods, and told her how I couldn't believe how bad the boys were to her son in school. After he really didn't seem to deserve any of it! As I think back on it now, we never said goodbye....she just paid for her things, and I continued with mine. And that was that.
This past week, I was watching the local news, and I caught an update that they were showing on a boy that had been killed by a gang. My heart dropped, and because I didn't catch the whole update, I went straight to the net and looked it up. The first picture they showed was this young young boy with a baseball cap on. Totally innocent looking. Then I continued to read the story and it talked about how the boy was sitting on his bike, and a fight broke out with the kids around him, and another boy struck this young boys' head so hard it killed him. My jaw dropped....the other details I read had to do with the mother trying to sue the school system. Everything seemed so familiar, so I looked at the other pictures they had posted on the site. I couldn't believe it, there she was. It was Sue. The woman I had met back in Walmart. Her son was killed on May 30, 2008. He had done nothing wrong, just an innocent boy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are so many gangs around here, and the ages of the kids keep getting younger. Sue's son was killed by a middle school gang. My heart still drops when I think of her. She was trying to do everything she could to keep her son safe....the last step was to take him out of school. I'm sure she didn't realize that it would ever get to the point it did. But she was scared for him.
I wonder if she remembers talking with me? Her story that she told me at Walmart made an impact on me. And maybe God had me there at that time, at that place, to listen to Sue, so that just one more person would be praying for her during this time of heartache. She's in my thoughts and prayers.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Thoughts on a New Year's Eve...

Well, it's officially January 1, 2009, and since I'm the only one still up...if you're not counting Roscoe the dog, and since I think you should, belay my last...and since Roscoe and I are the only ones still up, I felt like I should write something. Especially since I haven't written since, well, we lived in California...
So it's 1:53AM, the first morning of the new year. What in the world do I want to write about?
Maybe I want to write about two nights ago, 30 Dec, 2008, when a neighbor and I chased down a guy I saw peering in his back door, and how we confronted him, and how I thought there was a decent chance we both might wind up shot, and how I crashed in my living room with the gun by the couch, ready to go, should that guy know where I live...Or, maybe I should write about 31 Dec, 2008, when we went to a New Year's Eve church service for the first time in my life, and how we hung out with the pastor and a bunch of friends afterward, and how the girls were drawn to Daivney, and how they seemed magnetized by Natalie, and how in awe I am of her way with people...How in awe of her I've always been, in fact...Maybe I should write about my brother, David, the boy who's growing into a man, and how touched I am that he hasn't ever forgotten his big bro--even though I live half a nation away, haven't been home more than four times in the last three years, and he calls me--setting up the webcam himself--for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, since we couldn't make it back...Seeing him, talking with him and the family, means more to me than he will ever know....Which reminds me, maybe I should write of my folks, my Mom and Dad, who stayed home for the family and went out to travel and work for the family, respectively, so that I--being the firstborn--could know the value of both family and hard work, while being raised in a Christian home...Though I've tried to stray from my upbringing on more than one occasion, the examples they set, the years they put in and the lessons I received, have led me back to the Path more times than I could possibly count...Maybe I should talk about the Lord, the One who's brought us all the way from California to Maryland, even when I thought I'd be one of the almost 50% who didn't make it out of my training class, even when I thought there was no way Natalie and I could make things work financially on a small Navy paycheck, even when I thought there was no way a pregnancy and delivery could work out with one car and me an hour away for work, with a hospital farther away than that for delivery...Maybe, maybe, I should write about Daivney, the girl who can almost bring tears to my eyes just by the sound of her name and the image of her eyes, the baby of whom I barely feel adequate enough to call myself "Daddy," the Lord's gift of which I don't know if I'll ever feel worthy enough to have received...Maybe I should write of all these things. Maybe I should need another year, even more time than a year could ever provide, to write of all these things...