There has been some amazing things happening in our lives lately!

I am so excited to tell you about them.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

First off we enjoyed a great weekend that ended with church on Sunday and having a bunch of family over for lunch.

Our house was filled with laughter and love…and for me it doesn’t get much better than that!

Mr. Three and I picked up a movie to watch this weekend called Courageous.  

Take a peek here if you haven’t seen it.

It’s from the same people that created Fireproof which is also a great movie.

They are both great, wholesome movies.

Don’t get me wrong I love a good romance, chick-flick, or comedy but sometimes some of the scenes in the movies can be too much.

I love sitting down watching a movie knowing there isn’t going to be “F” bombs dropped every 5 minutes, or girls exploiting themselves, or people neglecting their children.

Courageous really struck a cord with hubby and I.

Honestly it was geared more towards fathers and what their duties are to their families, wives, and children as a Christian father.

But it also struck a chord with me, as a mom.

It made me realize that we don’t know how much time we have here.

We are never promised tomorrow so we need to make each day count.

Even if we are exhausted from working an 8 hour shift we still need to come home and be present in the lives of our children.

As in interactive, caring, listening, attentive, affectionate, forgiving, teaching, gracious.

All of those things I know I have been slacking on and hubby feels like he has too.

He couldn’t have said it better when he said last night that it is our duty to raise up our boys to be fine young men.

It is our responsibility to shape them into who we want them to be.

Men who are respectful, who know right from wrong, who care for others, who give, and who love.

Then even more miraculously and for the first time ever hubby and I picked up a bible together.

After sifting through and reading some passages we decided we are going to do a couples bible study together.

I would never in a million years have thought this would happen!

It has taken me 4 years to get my husband to attend church regularly with me and our 3 children.

I have prayed harder over this matter harder than you can possibly imagine, and finally I gave up.

Now 4 years later here we are and I couldn’t be more thankful.

About to embark on a couples bible study together to improve our lives and the lives of our children.

God is amazing!

How was your weekend? 

Well if there isn’t a baby boom  9 months from now with babies named Sandy Nor’easter I would be really surprised.

Oh and this statistic does NOT include our family!

First we dealt with Hurricane Sandy.

The high winds, rain, and no electricity.

Last night we had a nor’easter that brought about 4 inches of heavy, wet snow and no electricity for 11+ hours.
2 different storms in a week and a half?
Bizarre!

I was prepared for Sandy but not for the nor’easter.

Usually we get rain from nor’easters as we’re too close to the water, but last night that was not the case.

The snow just kept on comin’.
The only plus to having tons of snow is that it’s really cold outside and when we lost our electric I was able to put our milk, eggs, lunch meat, mayo, etc. outside in a cooler filled with snow to keep from going bad.
Great trick!!

We also ordered Chinese for dinner about an hour before the electric went out which meant we had to wave the delivery guy down in the pitch black with our flashlights 2 hours after we ordered the food!

Surprisingly the food was still warm when it got here and because we were so hungry it tasted like a steak dinner, yum!

We had dinner by flashlight while wearing our coats 🙂
Romantic, huh?
And today I’m cleaning up the remains of eating in the dark with a 4 and 6 year old…lots of crumbs!

The cold did creep in last night when we were sleeping and of course I was up every few hours making sure no kid came out of their cocoon we had made to keep them warm.

This morning I was very thankful that I woke up to feeling the warmth of heat coming out of our vents and the bathroom light on.

Our electric had come back!

Our kids are off from school for the next 5 days because of teacher conventions in our area and Veteran’s day so I’m hoping to keep them busy busy busy!

Mr. Three is outside with them right now playing in the snow…let’s see how long they last!

Well I guess that’s it for now.

Have a great day!

I recently stumbled upon an amazing Christian author, Joseph Prince, thanks to a great friend of mine.

I just started his 100 Days of Favor devotional book and I have to say it is amazing!

I’ve been searching for a great devotional for about a year now and nothing has ever fulfilled every need I had.

I guess I was a bit prejudiced and thought I needed a mothers devotional of some sort written by a fellow mom who understood my daily struggles.

It turns out that wasn’t the case-in fact it was the opposite.

I found my devotional written by a Christian man…ironic don’t you think?!
I knew He was smiling when this happened 🙂

So far I have taken away two great points.

The first is: Jesus is our perfect hero.

He is someone that we can be ourselves with every.single.day.

We don’t have to hold back one ounce of who we are.

He knows what our struggles, differences, and heartaches are.

He knows what we keep behind closed doors that we don’t share with others.

He does not judge.

It is okay to completely be who we are, and be honest with Him.
How freeing is that?  He know all of our nitty gritty and He still loves and cares about us.
He wants the best for us even though he knows the worst about us.

The second point is: It’s not what you have, but who you have.

We have Him.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…He is on our side!

If he is for us no one can be against us.

Do you know that He knows exactly how many hairs each of us have on our head?
We are all His children.

Who counts each hair on their child’s head?

Someone who cares a whole heck of a lot-that’s who!!

But it doesn’t just end there my friend.

Before this devotional I thought I was already handing everything over to Him.

I thought I was relying on Him-always, for everything.
Or so I had convinced myself I did…

As it turns out I was holding a whole bunch back.

I was afraid that my little, minute prayers weren’t going to be “big enough” problems for him to even look at or consider.
I was constantly telling myself that He would  write me off because I didn’t grow up in the perfect family, because I wasn’t married before we had our first two children, and the list like this goes on and on.

The truth is he cares about each one of us and each problem we face, no matter how big or small.

He cares about it all!

So from now on I’m handing it all over to him.

Every stress, fear, anxiety, problem, I have.

I am lifting it all up to Him.

I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see.

{via}

Well hello there, friends!

I have done some major slacking in the land of blogging recently.

Life has gotten away from me.

While our family was thankfully not directly impacted from Hurricane Sandy we live about 10 minutes from about 10 different places that were majorly impacted.

The places Mr. Three and I went to as kids for the beaches and boardwalks are no longer there.

I have been devastated for strangers losing everything they know.

We also have friends that just found out their house is condemned…they were just married a year and a half ago and have a 6 month old daughter.

It’s so heartbreaking.

We had family staying with us until this past Sunday that were affected by the Hurricane as well.

And while I always love being surrounded by family it was just a lot of work .

Especially post stroke.

It pretty much left me completely drained… physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Our kids were out of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week but were back for the later part of the week which involved two Halloween parties and two parades!
I was determined to have some routine around here so I tried to stick with as much of our pre-planned activities as possible even with family in town.
I successfully accomplished both activities for both kids and made a home cooked dinner that night for everyone at our house.
The Lord gave me his strength and patience that day to say the least!

Sunday came and I thought to myself okay I can get back to some normalcy around here.

We’ll get back into our routine and everything will be okay.

A great church service, a family day, and maybe some down time for good ole’ mom.

Well the plans went entirely different-as they usually always do!

As soon as Mr. Three woke up he was sick.

As in his asthma was acting up and needed nebulizer treatments around the clock sick 😦

There went my mommy down time.

And it pretty much went down hill from there.

Kids who had been off from school for close to a week+ being stuck in the house because of Sandy + entertaining family for over a week+ daylight savings time=not fun!

Can we just talk about daylight savings time for a minute?

I heard the farmers came up with it like back in the day?

Well I have news for you I do not farm, nor do I ever plan to farm, and I do not like it when my children wake up at 5 am ready for the day and are complete blubbering messes (along with me) at 5 pm!

Boo daylight savings!

Finally, last night was Trick or Treat as it had been rescheduled because of Sandy.

I was determined to be super mom and get all three kids dressed up and out there with our friends.
We had a Harry Potter, a police officer, and a Batman.
All which cost me $13 🙂
Yay for consignment shops and thrifty momma’s!

And for the first time in 2 years I was able to convince our kids to go trick or treating.

You see we have a big ole’ scaredy cat in our family {ahem kid #1}.

But I was able to bribe him with the thought of all his favorite candies.

Great mom- I know!

We tagged along with friends of ours and we were about a group of 6 or 8.

It was fun times for all-even though I may have had my first ever anxiety attack or panic attack?  

Is there a difference? I’m not even sure…I just know my body doesn’t handle situations as it once did and it’s very very frustrating!

Phew! Whatever those things are called they are scary.  

I can honestly say I have never felt that way before in my entire.life and hope I never do again.

That’s just one of the side effects I have been experiencing since my stroke-and I don’t like it-but that’s for another day!

Luckily Mr. Three was able to leave work early and rescue me from said situation which made me feel a whole lot better.

Then today we had all three kids home because their schools are used for voting purposes.

Hubby and I were determined to brave the voting lines.

It took about 2 hours as we had to do a tag off.

Hubby had to wait in the car while I went in first, then we had to switch off.

It actually wasn’t terrible as I thought it may have been.

I found a playground to entertain the kids while hubby was inside voting.

I was able to entertain them until none of us could feel our hands or ears!

Well folks I think that about wraps it up!

In one word the past few days can be put into one word: exhausting!

So exhausting in fact that I took a 2 hour nap today-completely uninterrupted.

But I can tell you that as always He knows our needs and puts us into situations that He wants us to be in.
Boy did that ring true this week in more ways than one for me!
I am so thankful for His grace, and love this past week.
It was certainly a growing week for me and I couldn’t be happier looking back it.

What have you been up to the past couple of days?

Were you, or family, or friends directly impacted by Sandy?

As I sit here typing from my warm,  cozy , intact, living room I am counting our blessings because even though Sandy made landfall about 10 miles away from us we still have a place to call home.

Many others in our area, and in the surrounding beach towns where I grew up, cannot say the same.

Entire towns are unrecognizable because of Sandy.

A storm that stretched 1,500+ miles and nearly all of the east coast.

People no longer have front doors to walk through, kitchens to cook family dinners, family rooms to have game nights, or bedrooms to tuck their children into at night.

Last night I had to force myself to turn off the news coverage showing the destruction Sandy left behind.

As hot tears welled up in my eyes I was a little more thankful for our house, though it may be small it is still standing.

For our cars, that they are still driveable.

For our couches though they aren’t brand new.

For our washer and dryer to wash clean clothes.

For heat to warm our home.

For a place that our children can lay their heads at night.

There are millions of displaced people out there right now because of Hurricane Sandy.

I am thankful that we only lost power for about 13 hours, most of which was during the night time.

We brought out an old school boom box and let our kids have a dance party lit by flashlights and family camp outs in our living room 🙂

We’ve been hosting different members of our family and friends at our house through the weekend and into this week because they still don’t have power.

They’ve lost all of the food in their refrigerators and freezers, though their homes saw no damage.  

We’ve been providing hot showers, hot meals, and places for people to charge their electronics.

And I am oh.so.thankful. that God has provided us the resources to help others in their time of need.

It fills my hear with joy to be able to help out-even in a small way.

No one in our area ever expected Sandy to do the amount of damage she did because we’ve had so many close calls in the past.

But this one made an impact on our community.

We will come back-stronger than before because after all we were born with sand between our toes and salt water in our hair.

It’s going to take time, but I know we will get there.

He will provide, and He will get us through.

Sandy is her name.

And from what we hear she is not nice!

If you don’t already know we live at the “Jersey Shore” somewhat close to Atlantic City to give you a better idea.

Since Friday our family has been preparing for what they are calling Frankenstorm…

aka Hurricane Sandy.

A 900 mile wide Hurricane that will eventually meet up with a cold front coming down from Canada.

Some are saying this has the ingredients for a perfect storm.

We’ve stocked up on bottled water, PB&J, bread, milk, ice, and non-perishable snacks for the kids to keep them entertained.

We are being told to prepare to lose our electricity for 7-10 days.

On Friday our kids school was already sending out the automated calls that they are closed Monday and Tuesday this week.

Mr. Three works in one of the Casino’s in AC and they have been mandatory evacuated and will be closed today, as well as Monday and Tuesday.

All of the barrier islands surrounding us have also been evacuated and they have stopped toll collection on both the GSP and AC Expressway.

EEEEEK!

For now we plan to ride out this storm at home and have stocked up on the essentials to get us through the next few days.

This morning we enjoyed worship with our church family, had a quick lunch, and then came home and put away all of our outside furniture and tied down what was too big to put away.

So if you don’t see me in the world of twitter//facebook//blogger you know why!

Pray for a quick, pain free, and non-messy storm here in Jersey for us, thanks guys!sdf

Apparently I didn’t get this memo above.

I’ll explain…

You see I already have a husband so I’m not out looking to meet my Mr. Right, and I’ve got three small kids so sweatpants have kind of become a fashion statement in my life along with stained t-shirts and messy hair!

My hair is never done, and makeup only goes on if I have a pre-planned event for the day lol!

Which brings me to my most recent embarrassing story.

Ready?  Here we go!

Remember that time I left the house to run to the post office?

You know just a quick trip to mail a letter…completely innocent!

So I hopped in the car still dressed in my physical therapy outfit {aka} sweats, a t-shirt, no makeup, and messy, messy hair.

Just a quick trip to mail a letter- I didn’t even think twice.

Lo and behold we pull up to said post office and there is the local news station with their cameras out and ready for an interview because our local post office is closing.

As I walk up they began to approach me and ask how I felt about this branch closing.

I didn’t even know they were closing but managed to spout off my feelings on this topic then got back into the car with my husband.

That’s when the hyperventilation and panicking began.

No makeup.

Eyebrows NOT done… in like weeks-eek!

Messy, frizzy, windblown hair, not even a swipe of chap stick or dab of lip gloss people.

I mean come on!

Remember when you were little and your mom told you to always leave the house looking your best because you never know who you might run into?

Well played mom, well played.

On the plus size my kids think I am now some sort of celebrity 🙂

I swear this stuff could only happen to me!

Yesterday marked three months since my stroke.

Finally yesterday came the good news I have been waiting a long time for.

This is something that has been weighing heavy on me lately, stressing me out and making my anxiety shoot through the roof!

 I passed a test, in a series of tests, that will allow me to start driving again…hopefully within the next couple of weeks!

Do you know how hard it has been to not drive for the past 3 months?

The last time I drove was the morning of my stroke when I drove myself to work.

It has been incredibly hard on both myself and my husband…can we say stressor?

I held back because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to write about how I was horribly afraid of failing.

I wasn’t sure I could handle another disappointment, another setback.

I wasn’t ready for the pointing of fingers, the others feeling bad for me, the more time of no independence.

Because that is what happens when you have a stroke.

Your life as you once knew it is gone.

You can no longer do anything for yourself, or anyone else.

Forget about PTA meetings, your children’s clubs/activities, gatherings with friends…it all goes out the window.

We had each of our kids signed up for an activity this fall that we had to pull out of because of me.

Yes I am thankful for being here today and I am forever grateful for Him for keeping me here but life is just not.the.same.

Your life as you knew it will be forever changed-or at least drastically changed for the next few years.

That is how long it takes for your brain to heal from such a traumatic event.

It fills me with anxiety just thinking about everything my body has been through.

We’ve been blessed with an incredible church family that has gone to the ends of the world to help

and we are forever grateful for them.

This whole process has really showed us the love others have for us.

Not just our church family but our work families, friends, relatives, and neighbors have all come together for our sake.

The outpouring of meals, rides, babysitters, prayers, the phone calls, the text messages, the emails just the way everyone has reached out to us and for us is simply incredible.

We have truly been blessed beyond anything I could possibly imagine.

Today is my last physical therapy session as well, as I will be graduating from the program.

That is another highlight in my life right now!

While I am still not back to work and still have some intense work to do with my ot program I am grateful to be where I am at today.

What are you grateful for today?

Oh hey there Monday…when the heck did you get here?

Feel free to pack up your stuff and move on because I am just.not.ready for you!

This weekend seriously went too fast.

Sorry this is getting out so late but time just got away from me!

We entertained family, had some home cooked yummy spanish dinners, movie nights, worship, haircuts for all the kids, play time at the park and with our neighbors, and an almost trip to the emergency room!

All in all I would say it was a good weekend- minus the ginormous boo-boo on kid #2’s head 😦
Thankfully his school pictures were already taken  🙂

What were you up to this weekend?

Hey there ya’ll!

That’s me trying to do my best southern expression on this Fun Friday!

I’ll stop creeping you out now….
 we’ve got rain all day here in Jersey and it doesn’t look like it’s ending any time soon.

I’m okay with that, I feel like I’m due for a day on the couch under the blankets watching t.v.
Probably watching LMN oh how I love LMN!!

Today’s Fun Friday will be dedicated to all things funny….

I have developed a slight obsession with those ecards that everybody has been posting on their social media.

I just think they are hilarious, like literally they make me LOL.
Sometimes it causes Mr. Three to give me weird looks as I’m laughing hysterically at my iphone.

So today I’m posting my fav’s here for you all to see.

I would love to see your fav ecards or just link up with things that make you laugh.

Hey it’s Friday, do whatevs you want and enjoy your weekend!
Catch ya later alligator!