This picture is of Ian playing in a field at the park. Jeff and I are running in the Fort Worth Zoo Run 5k on Saturday and we have not had a lot of time to train (like we have run 2-3 times total!) I hurt my knee on Tuesday running 3 miles (just to make sure I could do it!) So I decided that it was probably best to take it easy the rest of the week. So while Jeff ran, I walked the stroller around the path with Ian and Hazel inside. We got bored so we stopped and played in a field. I thought it was really pretty. Hopefully we will be able to run it all on Saturday!

This picture was taken at the very end of youth tonight. We are doing a few weeks of watching Rob Bell's Nooma videos and then having small group discussions. I LOVE it. This picture came from an amazing moment that happened AFTER youth was dismissed. We ran a little long and at 8 o'clock the youth were released to go home, but they had the option of staying and worshiping a little longer. God was present with these youth that stayed and this is what happened! They grabbed hands and worshiped together, in unity. It was a powerful thing to watch and I believe that so many Christians and churches should look to this as a wonderful example of coming together as one for Christ. And on a personal note, all those youth are middle schoolers, except one! Go junior high! God is using you guys in amazing ways!

Today was a super busy day. Hazel had a LONG overdue appointment with the chiropractor this morning and then we stopped by Home Depot on the way home (yes, I'm crazy for taking two babies into Home Depot by myself) I got some Petunias and the extra wood for my herb/flower gardens. By the time lunch was over and Ian was down for a nap I actually got Hazel to take a nap in her cradle as well! This is very exciting because usually she only takes a nap in my arms or in her bouncer. It didn't last very long, but I'm just proud of the fact she took a nap in her own bed (hence the reason why I took this picture)

Today was a beautiful Monday! I decided it should be spent outside mostly! We should admire all the gardening and yard work we did this weekend so I moved Ian's table outside and he ate lunch on the back patio. He thought it was really cool to eat outside. It was a little windy so I had to keep Hazel inside (a fun trick to have one baby inside and one baby outside) I also did some planting today (while Ian was napping) Not bad for a Monday!

This picture represents the story of our Sunday! Hazel was a little stinker today and wore us out with her crying. I think she is over tired. She doesn't nap very well. This picture is of Jeff and Hazel laying on our bed with the blow dryer going. This (and me taking a picture of her) was the only thing we could do to get her to stop crying. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think I posted this picture to facebook and the best advice for soothing a crying baby: My Uncle John suggested putting the baby on top of the dryer while its running. Our thoughts: BRILLIANT! We are sooo trying that!

Today we finally moved our raised garden to where we wanted it, put the landscaping paper in it, filled it with dirt and planted our plants! We had tons of fun planting our plants. We have a tomato plant, one red pepper and one green pepper plants, a squash plant and a zucchini plant. I hope they all make it! The picture is of me putting dirt into our garden!

Today was a fun Friday! We walked down to the neighborhood park and Ian and I played for a while. Then while Ian was taking a nap I put together this exesaucer and let Hazel bounce around in it! I had to stuff blankets around her because she is too little (and she doesn't sit up yet) This was her very first experience and as you can tell from the picture, she enjoyed herself very much!

Wednesdays are one of my favorite days of the week. Today was a pretty rough day at home with the babies. Hazel, again, is refusing to sleep at all during the day. Not only does this not give me a break, but she also gets VERY grumpy! This picture represents what I get to do on Wednesday nights! God has blessed me and this church with youth truly after God's heart, and I get the honor to lead and mentor them. This picture is of our praise band practicing. This praise band is full of wonderful youth!

So this week has been the week of sleep! Ian seems to be sleeping his life away while Hazel refuses to sleep at all during the day and is having trouble getting to sleep at night. I guess its a balance of the universe thing! This picture is of Hazel in her cradle during nap time. Nap time didn't go very well today...at least she's cute! (she doesn't have clothes on because she got too hot)

Pretty much all weekend we have been working on these raised garden beds with legs so that we can have a garden. We do not want to mess up the backyard and the grass (not that there is really any grass anyways) so we decided to build this on legs. We started building it on Saturday and today we finished it! Ian had a great time at the hardware store helping Daddy push the lumber carts! It was so cute! He had a really long week last week and slept through almost all of the day today! It was probably for the best because I know he needed the sleep!

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY! Or, as it is most commonly known...EASTER! Today is my favorite holiday, but it has been a little different since we have started a family. I do have to admit that Hazel and Ian looked completely adorable in their Easter outfits. By the time we got home Ian was grumpy and ready for a nap so I didn't get a picture of him in his outfit (don't worry, I will though! It was too cute!) Here is Hazel in her Easter dress. This is Hazel's first Easter! We were greeted by a thunderstorm while leaving church and that put a little damper in our plans, but we did spend the evening at Jeff's parents' house

Today was the day of our church Easter egg hunt, but we missed it because SOMEONE got out of bed too late and took too long (coughJEFFcough) Not that I'm bitter, but I was a little bummed. One of the girls gave Ian some eggs (which was SO sweet of her) and we hid eggs in the back yard. This picture is of Ian very pleased with himself that he found an egg. He even shared an egg with Hazel! I wasn't sure how he would do, but he had a great time AND found all the eggs. He isn't able to eat any of the candy inside the eggs, but that's ok. Jeff and I felt very commercialized when opening the eggs and getting the candy. We are still trying to decide what we are going to do to celebrate holidays (like Easter, Christmas, Halloween etc) and as we experience our first of each of these holidays with children, we have convictions about how we should celebrate and what traditions we want to do. We thought the egg hunting was fun, but thought the candy reward in the egg was a little too much. It is so much fun to celebrate holidays with your own little family and I pray that Jeff and I celebrate all holidays in ways that help our children understand the true meaning of them.

Today is Good Friday AND the Texas Rangers Opening Day! After a really rough week my mom decided to come up today and help me out a little bit. She offered and I was not going to turn her down! We went out for lunch and then headed to Kohl's to look for Ian and myself something for Easter. This is when the chaos started! All my mom and I could do was laugh at how crazy it was. Ian was running up and down the aisles in between the clothes. My mom was literally running after him. He wasn't misbehaving, he just had a lot of energy and thought the toys were way more exciting than clothes. Then Hazel started crying, then it elevated to an angry cry/scream. She was getting hungry. She started this just as I had found some clothes for Ian and wanted to see how they would look. We did find Ian an adorable outfit, but there was no time for me to look. Later my mom stayed with the kids and I went to go look. They didn't have much and I got really frustrated. This evening we went to the Good Friday service at church. It is always one of my favorite services. I had to leave Hazel in the nursery for the very first time and I was a nervous wreck! She did fine, but I still didn't like leaving her in there! This picture is of Hazel in her Ranger's outfit! Ian, Hazel and I all had our Texas Rangers stuff on today (Jeff FORGOT!) This onsie I actually made for Ian the first year they made it to the world series and it fits Hazel perfectly. I think I need to add a red tutu to it though...make it more girly!

Today was a pretty rough day. Actually it has been a really rough week! Hazel cried almost ALL day and Ian has been on this SUPER hyped up thing all week. By the time Jeff got home I was completely done. We headed out to the Maundy Thursday dinner at church and Hazel was just fine until the EXACT moment in which I got my food. Then she started screaming and demanded a 45minute feeding! I missed the whole dinner AND the scripture and everything about Jesus and the Last Supper and all that. I was pretty upset I missed it all. It probably wouldn't have made me so upset if my day hadn't been so bad. Today's picture is of the letters I painted for Hazel. I finished them up today and it was the best part of my day. I finally finished them and we can now put them up on her wall!

Today was spend with a good friend and her new little one Wesley! After a tough day yesterday, it was great to have a little bit of company and "grown up" talk! She brought us lunch and we talked about babies, seminary, youth ministry...you know, all the stuff normal moms-with-a-religion-degree talk about! It was a lot of fun! The most exciting part was probably Wesley rolling over for the very first time! He rolled over back to stomach and we all squealed with delight! (Yes, there was lots of mommy squealing and it was great!) I was very honored that I got to witness his first roll-over. Thank you Wesley! This is a picture of Hazel and Wesley (Ian had to go down for a nap) We had a great time and definitely should be done again!

Today was a little rough during the day. I think Hazel is going through a growth spurt and Ian is hitting is 2 year old phase. (Not the Terrible Two's just a new phase) Ian and I spent some time playing in his room. We were singing and playing musical instruments together. It was a lot of fun! Hazel sat in there with us and enjoyed it too! This picture was taken right before Ian's nap time. He wanted Hazel to take a nap in his crib with him. I thought that was so cute...Hazel didn't like the idea! After Jeff got home we worked on putting up all the decorations in Ian's room. His room looked so bare without anything on the walls and I'm having a friend over tomorrow so I figured it was a great excuse to get Ian's room done. We put the letters up on his wall, two decorative shelves, his comforter and a stuffed animal net. His room looks great and Ian is very proud of it! I am really glad he likes it!

I was trying to figure out what to use as a picture today because today was pretty uneventful. Which I guess is a good thing for a Monday! This is a picture of Hazel during tummy time today. I put some toys in front of her and she got so excited! She does look stunned in this picture, but trust me, she was having a great time! It was fun to see her laugh and smile at the toys and try to play with them! It is crazy how fast she is growing and able to do more and more every day! I'm scared to blink because she is going to be grown before I know it!

I cannot get over the beauty of these bluebonnets! These are in beautiful clumps all over our church property. So at church today I took some more pictures of them. Didn't get any of Ian or Hazel, but it was still fun! Today was church, lunch with friends and then a nap. That's pretty much all we had time for!

As much as I wish I could have been with the youth at Acquire the Fire again today, I needed to be home with the family. Hazel is just too little to be away from Mommy that long. We had a great day though! We went to the church for a picnic that the school hosted and then we took pictures in the bluebonnets. This is my favorite picture of Ian. I did not get a chance to take very many pictures because the kiddos were tired and grumpy (and believe it or not, it was kinda hot!) We were all exhausted after all this excitement that both babies crashed hard for like 4 hours (both) So pretty much the rest of the day was at home being lazy.

Today is a day that I have been looking forward to for a long time. Tonight I got to go to Acquire the Fire. It's a youth worship/spiritual retreat weekend. They had bands, worship, dramas, videos and speakers. It's a Friday night-Saturday thing. Tonight we had some amazing worship and dramas, and some crazy videos. I got to pray over and pray with some of our youth. It was an amazing night. This picture is the view we had from our seats. It doesn't matter how many times I see it, a large group of teenagers unashamed worship for God really is an amazing sight!

Today we cooked hamburgers and stuffed jalapenos on the grill. Its a lot more fun to grill now that it stays light outside longer. Ian is able to go out with Jeff and play while he is grilling. Jeff was having a really hard time starting the grill. So by the time the hamburgers and jalapenos went on the grill we were sooo hungry we probably didn't leave them on long enough. I also grilled some zucchini while we still had a hot fire. I was literally searching the fridge for things to grill because the fire was really hot and great for grilling....too bad it took so long! This picture is of Ian throwing the ball to Titan. As you can probably tell, Titan was very excited about this...but probably not as excited as Ian. He would giggle and giggle every time he'd throw the ball!

This Bible verse was part of the youth message tonight. We have been talking about spiritual warfare and tonight it was very applicable! I, again, had my junior high youth tonight and they amazed me, yet again, with their depth and curiosity! I got to spend some quality time with them talking about Satan and temptation. At the end, I used Psalm 130:23-24, the verses in this picture as a prayer and prayed for the youth. After youth I got to hang out more with the youth and hear what was on their hearts. I was reminded tonight that teens now have a lot of serious, heavy, burdensome things that go on in their lives. My goal, my purpose is to be there for them; for advice, for venting, for listening, for hugs, for whatever they need so they know that they are loved

Today I, again, took caution to the wind! I turned off Sesame Street and decided we were going for a walk! I put Hazel in the SINGLE stroller and made Ian walk with me (such a horrible mom, I know!) We walked down to the neighborhood playground down the street. It was lots of fun and Ian enjoyed the swing (as you can tell from the picture) His wiggling during the swinging made me nervous. I swear he was going to to flip right out of there! We walked back...and I use the word "WE" very loosely! Ian got tired and I had to pick him up and carry him while pushing the stroller. That required a talent I did not know I had. Needless to say, Ian took a nice nap! After Jeff got home we went back up to the park to run. I ran a good two miles (with a slowed down pace) and it felt GREAT! Jeff ran a mile with the stroller (he's crazy!) He said it was just as much exercise as my two mile run. He's probably right!

Today I felt like throwing the stereotype of Monday being bad out the window! We decided to run some errands and do a little shopping. My best, and really only, purchase of the day was some new running shoes. I went to Ross hoping to find some running clothes. They didn't really have anything in that department so I went and looked at shoes. They never have anything in my size, but sitting all by themselves, in my favorite color, my favorite brand of running shoes! I was so excited and they were only $30!! Jeff and I are planning to doing the Zoo Run 5k near the middle of April. So we are going to start running...well actually we started today! After Jeff got home from work we headed to the park with the kids to run. We took turns running because of the kids (our stroller is NOT runner friendly) I ran about a mile. It was the first time I had run in a REALLY long time....like before being pregnant with Hazel and possibly longer! I took the pace a little too fast so I was feeling it at the end, but I was still excited to be able to run again! This is a picture of me stretching/showing off my shoes!