Savannah Birthday

Happy, Happy 7th Birthday to my sweet Savannah Joy!!  Savannah has such an infectious giggle and a smile so bright it lights up a room.  She is a great little and big sister who is always willing to help out.  Savannah loves to make lists and organize things (a girl after my own heart) I am so blessed to get to celebrate another birthday with her!

We started out the morning with a candle in her egg bagel!

Then we headed out to the zoo for some water play fun and ended the day at the mall picking out some goodies from Claire's!

That night she got to go out to eat with Daddy and I and even Uncle Preston since he was in town.

By time we got home for a dessert of cheese cake with everyone she was one tired girl!  :)


Over the weekend we had a party with friends and grandparents.  It was our first swim party in our new house and I am sure there will be plenty more to come.  ;)

Anastasia made the mermaid cake.

Discipleship Training School

I am so PROUD and AMAZED of my daughter, Anastasia!  She completed a 13 week discipleship course that was designed for 17-21 year olds.  Good friends of ours, Pastor James and his wife Tracy lead this course.  It is an intense course that required a lot of focus and dedication and Anastasia completed it (during our move and everything)  She asked to do this course and only wanted to do it if they wouldn't "dumb" it down because of her age.
At the end of the 13 weeks they had a graduation ceremony.  It was a beautiful dinner and each participant got a chance to get up and give their testimony and share some verses they had memorized.  Then they were presented with a beautiful new note taking Bible.

Who Am I?

I have the Holy Spirit power! I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed.  I have stepped over the line.  THE decision has been made.  I am HIS DISCIPLE.  I won't look back, let up, slow down, or back away.  My past is forgiven, my present makes sense and my future is secure.  I am finished with low-living, sight-walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talk, cheap giving and dwarfed goals.  I do not need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotion or popularity.  I do not feel the need to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded.  I now live by faith, live by prayer, lean on Him, walk in patience and labor by His power!  My face is set and my goal is the Kingdom of Heaven.  My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my Guide is reliable and my mission clear.  I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, deluded or delayed.  I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the presence of adversity.  I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity.  I will never give up, shut up or let up.  I will pray, read God's Word, deny myself and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.  I must go until He comes, give until I drop, preach until all know and work until He stops me.  When He comes or takes me home, may He have no problem recognizing me! I am a DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST!

Moving

.....Moving......that's all I really have to say about that!!!   LOL  I absolutely loathe moving but you might not know that from all the times we have actually moved!  This move was really bitter-sweet.  We had actually been in Casa Grande just over 3 years! (Hard to believe I know!)  Moving into that house we thought we would be there a lot longer and it was a great house for our size family.  Well it was time to move back to the valley and try and find a house in the area we are going to be serving in.  It's a bit different though this time because Jay will be working full time and church planting part-time full time.  ;)

 So we now live as far west as you can get and still be part of the east valley!  It took a couple of weeks of house hunting, as we are having to downsize considerably but we finally found a house that we can live with.  (Not our favorite but it works well for us now and knowing that it gets us back up here and we can search out houses so when we are ready to buy again we can take some time looking).  The house is considerably smaller but it actually fits us well and we needed to purge a lot of stuff anyways!  We are so excited to have a pool that we were willing to overlook other things.  However, the pool does take up the entire back yard so we will see how we do this winter.  Luckily there is a big park nearby and we are all getting bicycles.  We are actually close to everything now and our drive to go anywhere is cut by 30-40min.  That will be so nice!

Moving with us doesn't just happen in 2 days, no the last couple of moves have dragged out by at least a week.  We were blessed that someone loaned us their 33 foot enclosed trailer to use. And we also had several guys with muscles that helped too!  :)   We filled the trailer 3 times plus countless trips with the suburban.....  But alas we finally got everything moved, had two yard sales, countless things donated to goodwill and a bulk trash pick up.  I have to say the hardest of it was parting with my baby stuff and maternity clothes.  It was time to bless someone else with all of that instead of hanging onto it.  So I donated it all to the Crisis pregnancy center. 

I am amazed I even took pictures because I was not in the mood for that!  And as you can see in the pictures the kids were ever so helpful with riding up and down the ramp on their scooters.  LOL

   We have a lot of stuff but Jay's desk and the treadmill had to go up stairs.......yea..... at least the piano and hide-a-bed stay downstairs.  LOL

Give us about a week to get most stuff settled in and then we need to finish up the school year.  Then I am sure over the summer there will be more purging going on!

Anastasia's Track Meet

Anastasia started her third year of track at the middle school but she wasn't able to complete the season due to us moving. She was able to compete in two of the meets and she did GREAT!!  Anastasia tried the hurdles more this year and she is getting quite good at them.  I love watching her run and am so proud of her accomplishments.  She hasn't decided yet though if she wants to continue or not in high school.  So we will see.  Here are some pics of her final meet.

Easter

                         Happy Resurrection Sunday!!

Don't the kids look so cute all dressed up!  :)

What a day....both wonderful and exhausting all at the same time.  Good news is that this was are first and last time having to travel from Casa Grande to get to church.  We had to leave our house by 6:30am....crazy!.  We have found a house  up in the valley and we will be moving in a couple of weeks. (More on that later.) 

So like I said we left super early to get to church in time to help set up.  We had quite a few visitors which was great!  After church we were all ready to go to Nana's (Nikki's mom's) for lunch and to hang out for the afternoon.  The kids had a great time playing bubbles, swinging, playing on the water slide and Nana made all kinds of wonderful food!!!  :)

After Nana's we stopped back at Dan and Nikki's for awhile and then Jay's dad and Donna met us there so we could take them by to see our new house. We went by there and then headed back to CG.  By time we got home it was 9pm but the kids were still excited to finally get to get their Easter baskets.  They waited patiently, not so patiently all day.  :)  Our new house has a pool so the easter bunny brought lots of new pool toys.  ;)

Jadon didn't wake up at all.  He got to open his basket the next morning.

I hope you all had a blessed Easter !