Life is so Fragile.....

This was one of the saddest weeks of my life.....

My dear friend, Yvonne and her sweet 8 year old boy Paul, who is in Matthew's class, had to bury an amazing husband and father this week. His death was a very tragic and sudden death, and we are all left to wonder "Why"? I know that only God know this, and that someday we will have the answers that all of us want to know, especially Yvonne. For now, I am praying from the bottom of my heart that my friend, will find a strength within her that she did not know she had.

I'm back.....

I cannot believe that it has been almost a year since my last post! For personal reasons, I made a few changes to my blog, and I hope to be back for good! I have really missed it! The boys are are growing so fast and this summer, I am having moments where I wish I could just freeze time and keep these days forever....Every time I think about school starting, I get sad :( Cannot believe that Matthew will be in 3rd Grade and that Michael is starting Kindergarten! Is it REALLY possible?

We have had an awesome summer, spent a week in Arizona, saw Grand Canyon and Sedona and so many other cool things. We also took anothe trip back to Holiday world, with great friends, and had sooo much fun! The boys just finished baseball, so we decided to squeeze in a little family "get away", before soccer starts. I will post pictures soon!

It's almost over.... :(

We have been very busy the last month of summer! I am obviously wayyyy behind in my blogging :( Spending lots of time together as a family. We have finished lots more around the house(finally). The boys played baseball until middle of July. They had swimming lessons every day for 3 hours, for TWO weeks! Then we spent two weeks at our condo at the Lake, the boys had a blast swimming, fishing, tubing and boating! We started August by celebrating Matthew's 8th Birthday last week! I can hardly believe that my baby is 8!!! It also would have been my Mom's 62nd birthday.
We added a new member to our family: We bought Matthew a Russian Tortoise for his birthday...he named him Rockey. Just another boy and another mouth to feed..lol :) Matthew had A Reptile Experience for his birthday party. He had a blast and his friends seemed to have fun too. We are cramming stuff in and sadly counting down the days until school starts. Matthew's teacher came for a home visit last week. We also got all of our school supplies this weekend. Matthew will start 2nd grade and Michael will be in Pre K. 3 days a week. I feel like the summers and the years are going by WAY to fast for me! I love school , but I miss my "baby" and our "down time".
I am going to leave you all with some highlights of our July! Hope I will be caught up on my blogging soon!

Pray for me...Pray for others

I participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request. Wednesday(I am a day late) is now known as "Pray for me...Pray for others" on the Riggs blog - and they want blog authors to post their prayer request and then post a prayer request that they have for another person/family/situation.

Pray for Others

I have been following this blog for some time now....Ryan and his mother Missy are both dying of cancer. What the precious family is going through just breaks my heart. Please visit their blog and caringbridge site and PRAY! PRAY! I have such a heavy heart right now thinking of their situation.

(***I just found out that Missy died today...PLEASE pray for this family! I cannot imagine the loss they are feeling!)

Baseball & Fireworks...

We have been continuing to have a wonderful summer! I have been working out at the gym almost every day, I feel good and I love having that hour by myself in the morning. Last week we took the boys to the Cardinal game. They had so much fun! Matthew is VERY in to baseball right now, and is so much fun to go to the game with. Michael loves it to, but his attention span is much shorter. Plus he got so tired! The game was actually tied and went into extra innings. The Cardinals won in the bottom of the 10th with an AWESOME home-run, fireworks and all! I will never forget the look on Matthew's face! He was so excited! I was so happy for him and glad that we stayed till the end!!!

We celebrated the 4th of July on Friday with our good friends The Muellers. Had an awesome dinner and shot off some great fireworks!

We woke up on the 4th of July to LOTS of rain! We hung out at home, and then headed over to our friends for their HUGE annual 4th of July party. They had the most incredible fireworks that I have ever seen at someones home! It was awesome! The kids hung out with their friends, and so did we...lots of yummy food and drinks. Michael ended up getting hit in the head by a baseball bat. He had a BAD bump, but was okay. I was so grateful that it was a plastic bat and NOT aluminum!

We have had another wonderful week! I am so grateful for the life that I have been blessed with! God is so good to me!

Fun in the Sun....

:)

Jet ski time....

Good times....

Go Karts...



Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband!!

We spent Father's Day weekend at the Lake with some friends...I missed spending the day with my Dad and Dave's Dad. We actually spent Monday evening with Dave's Dad, went to dinner and to see Annie at the theater. We got to see my Dad for a little while today(he watched the boys while I got my hair cut) and I still owe him dinner :) I know Dave had a great time celebrating Father's Day at the Lake. I think he really liked his gift too! I decided to surprise him and got him the portable Bose system for our IPOD. He is such a wonderful Father & Husband and I am so blessed!

Summer break is flying by...way too fast :(

We have been swimming quite a bit and the boys have had LOTS of baseball games.

It has been SOO HOT here, Saturday is predicted to be 100 degrees :( YUCK!

I hope everyone is having a great summer! I am trying to catch up on my blogging.....

Race For The Cure...

I participated in the Race for the Cure this weekend. I have ran/walked the race for several years; even before my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was only the 2nd year that I had my own pledge page and raised money to honor my Mom's memory. I was actually one of the top 100 fundraisers in my area for the 2nd year. I am SO blessed to have such wonderful family and friends who contributed to my cause! I actually ended up running the race by myself yesterday....last minute things came up for my brother and best friend. Well actually me and about 67,000 other people ran and walked it. I ran the 5K(3 miles) in 35 minutes..not bad :)

It is such an AMAZING thing to see; women and men and children of ALL ages. I was near tears so many times. I do miss my Mom, and she was too young to die; but I was blessed with almost 35 years with her. Yes, I raise money and race to honor the memory of my Mom, but I also do it for ALL of the other women who are diagnosed every day! I want this disease to be cured, so that no one else had to lose their Mom!

Wore this on my shirt.....
Some pics....

Pieces for a puzzle that the boys and I decorated ....