Merry Christmas

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Love my life

Today I realized how great my life is. I am currently sitting typing this with this beautiful weather outside my windows. The boys are having a great time on the trampoline laughing and playing. I have less than a month until my new bundle of joy will be here. My husband has a job that he gets to be home every night! And most of all, I have a God who will always be here with me no matter what. My cup over flows!!

Nothing Much

I am sitting here at home and thought I would post on my blog. Maybe someone out there is still reading this. There is not anything big going on so I will just update with all the little things at one time.

Riley is in the first grade this year! What a change from last year. There are spelling tests and homework. Yuck! He seems to be hanging in there so far. He knows many of the kids in his class from last year which brought him a lot of comfort on the first day. It is amazing how much he has already learned in such a short time.

As I type this I am watching my belly move as if an alien is trying to get out. I am 32 weeks and the baby is running out of room to move. I think we have decided on a name... Miles Ethan Norton. I think I am going to have to wait and see him before I decide for sure. This is probably the 10th name we have come up with.

Aaron once again has a new job. He is going back to FedEx, but in a different division. He will start next week on the 29th. We are both very excited. For us this means weekends off!! It has been a long time since we have been able to use that phrase. God is blessing us daily!

Belly Painting Pics

Belly Painting

I have decided I want to have some pictures taken of me while I am pregnant. I wanted to do this with my last pregnancy but did not want to go to a public place and expose my bare belly. We have a close friend who takes pictures and I approached him about doing the pictures and he said he would love to. In the mean time he has a friend who wants to paint pregnant bellies and they asked if I would like for her to paint mine. What a great idea! So, last night I went to her house and sat for her while she used my belly as her canvas. What a great experience! I did not really know what to expect but I was amazed at what a great job she did! She was able to do two different pictures and they are both fantastic! We decided to get together again later when I get bigger and she what she can do.

I am also going to wait until I get bigger and have some pictures taken with Aaron and the boys without a painted belly. I figure this is my last pregnancy and I am going to take advantage of this opportunity!

Starla

A Day Out!

I decided I wanted to take the boys to do something fun before school starts. I decided to take them to the museum while it is in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and was talking to mom about it the other day. We decided to take the kids on a day that she had the girls. So we loaded up in my car and took off for Ft Worth. When we got there somehow Riley got it in his mind that it was going to have animals. What a big disappointment for him. After we cleared that up he wanted to know where all the cowboy stuff was. We had to explain to him that it was only about cowgirls! On the way home we stopped in Lake Worth and ate at Chick-fil-a and let the kids play for a little bit. In the end everyone seemed to have a good time including Riley. I told the boys we would go to the "big" museum once they were finished working on it. I think they were wanting to see the dinosaurs!

Vacation

Last week all 12 of us went to Gulf Shores, Alabama. What a great time. We decided to take a vacation this year that was a relaxing vacation on the beach. The guys took a day and played golf then the next day they went bay fishing. Us girls (and Brandon) decided to take a day away and go to a spa. Now granted it was not the best spa but it was nice to have a relaxing day. Then my parents decided to watch the kids so that us young adults could have a date night. Brandon found a sunset dolphin cruse we went on then went out to eat. It was a good night away from kids. We all had a good time! Aaron took the boys to the beach a few times. Other than that we did a whole lot of nothing. My dad spent most of the vacation on the porch looking through his binoculars. He called them his "necklace". I think that everyone had a good vacation.

News!

So most of you know that I am pregnant. Well, yesterday we found out we are having a boy!! Three boys...Wow! During the sonogram they measured everything and he was perfect. Everything was where it is supposed to be, and closed up where it is supposed to be, he looked wonderful. What a blessing! Now we get to start the name game/ conversation/ discussion. It takes us a while to find a name we both like. My due date did not change, it is still Nov. 14.

On the other hand with some sad news.. a good friend of mine from high school lost his mother last Friday. She had a heart attack. I can not imagine loosing my mother at such a young age with no warning. The family seems to be handling everything as best as can be, but it just breaks my heart. It makes me remember to not take one day for granted.

Thank you to all of you who still read my blog. So far I do not have a desire to do facebook so I will try to keep up with this blog.

Catching up!

I have decided I am the worst blogger!! I don't make time to sit down and type. That should have been my new years resolution! I have decided today to make the time...

Everything is going pretty good with us. Aaron has been busy working!(yeah!) Riley is loving school and is doing very good.

We went on a camping trip Easter weekend to Mineral Wells and had a wonderful time. We came back to town pulling our camper to church, but no one seemed to mind. It did rain on us but did not hinder our fun.

Now I am trying to get everything ready for the relay for life. It is this Friday night. There is going to be all kinds of things planned for us to do during the night. We will see if I make it till 6 am. I am going to try! Our theme is "Mamma Mia". We have had shirts made and are selling jewelry and lemonade and crossed to decorate with mosaic pieces. It should be a lot of fun.

I know that in my last blog I said I was going to update my pictures but I am having some difficulties with my camera so maybe next time. May God bless you all with a wonderful week!

Starla

One last thing, for you all who have commented on my necklace that my friends made me, they now have a website! Check it out! The link is on the right of my page!

Relay!!

As many of you know, Azle has a Relay for Life event every year. This year to celebrate being finished with chemo and radiation my mom has decidedto become a team captain. She has enough people that want to help she now has two teams so I have stepped in to be a captain also! If you would like to help with a donation or would like to join my team please go to: www.RelayForLife.org/AzleTx and click on Joyce's Journey 2. Thank you all for your continued prayers for my mom!

Update!!!

Hello to all! I know it has been a long time since my last post. A lot has happened this year. This year has not been my favorite by any means. I have decided I want a do-over! 2009 started out with a miscarriage with a D & C, Aaron was laid off the next day, and then we found out it would not be a good idea to get pregnant again. (Sorry for the small pity-party.)

Things are getting better now so I felt that I should update everyone with what is going on! Aaron did get another trucking job. He is working for a company out of Decatur and likes what he is doing. We are not sure about the hours so he is still somewhat on the look. He is thinking about becoming a teacher (I think he will do great). It is because of God that we are surviving. The good thing with all of these bumps in the road is Aaron and I are getting closer everyday! I also know that life could be much worse than it is now!

I promise I will soon update the pictures! Thank you for hanging in there with me. Hopefully I will stay up with my blog!

Starla

Friends

We have all heard that trying times will show you who your true friends are. I have not really experienced this until this last year. The year started with having to recover from a DNC while packing a whole house with just me, my mom, and Reagan. Aaron was wonderful to me but he was not able to help much physically as he still had a job to do. We moved to our new house and at that time, because of my sadness, I could not see how different friendships would affect my life. Thank you to those who called and checked on me, helped me unpack all of the horrible boxes, and kept me moving forward.

Fast forward to this summer when my mom had a car wreck and soon found out she had lung cancer. At that point in time I realizied who I could truly go to with my deepest concerns. (You all know what I am talking about!) Now that Mom is finished with the 16 weeks of chemo I can look back and evaluate the different types of friendships in my life. In this trying time I have realizied each friendship has a different purpose: some for prayer, some for tears, some for laughs, and some for when there are no words. Some of my deepest friendship are from childhood and some from a few months ago. It is amazing to me who God places in our lives to get us through each situation we face.

I am thankful for all of the wonderful friends, no matter how close, that God placed in my life. Thank you all for your continued prayers for the last 5 months since all of this started. Thank you to those who have called and checked on me, offered to help me with my boys while I took Mom to chemo, or took Mom to chemo so I did not have to take her every week. I may have not said thank you to everyone but please know that I am so grateful for each one of you!

Starla

Rock Band Christmas

Aaron and I are celebrating our first Christmas in our new house this year. We decided to have all of my family over on Christmas Eve. We did our normal snack foods. Then let the kids open their gifts. While they were playing with their new stuff us adults did our Chinese Christmas. It was so fun. There was some dirty looks given but over all everyone had a good time. To top the evening off we played a little Rock Band and had red velvet cake. What a fun night! Hopefully I will get pictures to post!

Christmas morning was a blast. We all had a great morning. There were too many gifts to list each one off. Our house looked like a Christmas tornado went through my house. There was wrapping paper, boxes, and twist ties everywhere. I am still finding trash hidden in small places.

For New Years Eve Aaron and I, with another family, took our kids to a hotel in Decatur. One of the rooms had a huge hot tub in the room so the kids got to go "swim" there in the room. We took all kinds of snacks and games so we did not have to leave the room. The little kids were asleep by 9:30 and the big kids were asleep by 10:30. The adults stayed up playing cards and talking till midnight. It was a good family friendly night.

I pray that this new year brings blessings to everyone.
Starla