So Much to Say, So Little Time

Zoom, zoom, zoom... on we go, along with the rest of the world in this crazy rat race of life.  Sometimes I stop to think, what are we all sprinting for?  What are we gaining?  What is this all about?

And then I come back to my Savior and I know my purpose again.  The Lenten season is upon us and with it we've added more prayer, sacrifice, and almsgiving, all wonderful things to enrich our walk with Him.  Usually by this point we are knee deep in our Lenten Jesus Tree, but frankly, I just never got it going last week and now here we are 8 days in...

No worries, it will all be good.  My kids will not grow up to be hooligans just because we missed a week of the Jesus Tree.  Breathe...  ;)  I recently read a post in which a mother berated herself as a poor mother for the poor-quality Valentines her children passed out at school.  What?!?  Mothers are weak against comparison--it is a sinful spot in every mother's heart.  Stop it, already!!  Motherhood is about loving your kids and helping them to learn to love well.  While their Valentines might not be the best on the street, do your kids know you love 'em?!  Job well done.  Do they know that God loves 'em too?!  Even better.  Enough of my soapbox! :)

Love this shot of our Lego boys.  M is in clone character, J is sweet, and T is doing some Star Wars move.  This is just about right.

Speaking of loving your kids, we had a fun morning with the boys last weekend at our town's LegoFest.  Mimi watched the girls while GG, Papa, and I took M, T, and J.  It was a fun-filled 3 hours that left us all surprisingly tired!  The boys built legos, played with new lego models, created lego art, and all around had a great time.  Funny enough, we even spent time in the reading area digesting new lego books!  It was all-around a fun experience.  Thank you to Mimi/Papa for gifting it to the boys for Christmas!

Lego Art, J style.  It is a picture of Luigi (from Mario Bros.) with LUIGI spelled across the top. :)

Lego Art, M style.  A clone trooper (he is planning his future clone army, no joke)

Lego Art, T style.  This is Mario (love it!)

Later that night we gathered at Mimi and Papa's for a fun celebration in honor of G's brother, C, and his engagement to the sweetest gal, M!  We are so excited for them!!!  They are in the whirlwind process of planning a September wedding in Williamsburg.  Plans are in full swing all around and the girls and I accompanied Mimi yesterday to W-burg to check out rehearsal dinner sites.  So fun!!  It was a lovely distraction from all the to-do's in my world.  Those 7 loads of laundry didn't really need to get done, did they??  We had a great time.

Here we are after dinner--so glad C is now stateside.  We are counting the days until M can come home too!!  She is still in Italy, wrapping up a DOD rotation.

And lastly, G-Ville is saying goodbye to a long-time, faithful friend of the family, Big Blue, our trusty minivan.  He was gifted to us from Gramz and Pappy as we awaited J's arrival after law school.  5 years later, he has a lot of '98 quirks, but is still a good guy.  The kids were sentimental picking up our "new" '10 Odyssey minivan on Saturday, but are settling in and enjoying all the perks of the various bells and whistles.  True to their wishes, we will be donating Blue to a "soldier and his family" through the Purple Heart Donation Corporation.  It was the only way we could convince the kids to let him go... They are clearly sentimental saps like their mother! ;)

Faithful Blue, we'll miss you.

But don't feel sad because this is our new baby and she is pretty!  Black Beauty or Blue's Brother is what we're calling it.  "BB" for short.  Give us a wave when you see us cruising by! ;)

Hello new friend!

Mama's new baby ;)

God bless from G-Ville!
Have a brilliant weekend,