Thursday?

I couldn't think of any better title, so that's what you get "Thursday?" Creative, huh??? ;) This is going to be random...

Thank you all for your sweet words on yesterdays post. Keep praying for Amy and her husband. I know they need all the prayers they can get to mend their broken (assumedly) hearts.

I am getting sick, BLECH!!!!!!! :( I work in an office environment and people come to work sick, when they shouldn't be here (I don't mean a simple cold. I mean hacking their lungs out), and then spread their germs to everyone else (AHEM! Me! :( And it really drives me insane because we work in a pretty flexible environment where most of us can work from home, if need be. Anywho, enough complaining! :) I'm getting sick, it stinks, and next week is month end and we are going to be S-L-A-M-M-E-D so hopefully this cold runs its course and FAST! Hubby has been working later in the evenings all week (except for date night :),  is helping a guy from church around his house tomorrow and Saturday (because the man and his wife are moving to TN and need to sell their home), so I'm solo with the kiddos (I don't know how single parents do it. I REALLY don't! My kudos to all single parents out there!!!! :)) My mom is taking Manuel to see The Smurfs on Saturday. Mia and I will probably just lay low, especially if I'm still sick. Then after their done at the movies we're supposed to go to the local Amish market. Should be fun! :)

I might be MIA for the next week or so as the end of the month comes and goes. But I promise to still read and comment on your blogs! :) I'll leave you with this beauty...

And for good measure...

A month or so ago we had a playdate at the park. I didn't know my friend Lauren took this pic of Mia, until she texted it to me the other day. I LOVE it!!! :) 

Saddened...

To those people that don't blog, this would probably seem so crazy and "weird" but to my fellow bloggers, I know you'll understand...my heart for the blogging community is huge. I include you all in my prayers each day, and some of you, who I've really connected with on a personal level, I pray for specifically. When you are rejoicing in a wonderful moment in your lives, I rejoice too. When you experience heartache, my heart aches for you as well. Grant it, to some it might seem strange because we are "strangers" but that's just the kind of person I am. Once you've taken a place in my heart for whatever reason, my heart keeps you in it! :)

For some reason (not sure why because I have never had any dealings with adoptions) but I am drawn to adoption blogs. Whether it be the birthmoms, the parents the child is placed with, etc. I am just drawn to their stories. I find adoption fascinating). I am also drawn to infertility blogs (again, not something I've ever directly dealt with), but I just read these blogs, the hope, the fear, the sadness, etc. and it makes me realize what a blessing my children are, how lucky I am to have them, and how I should NEVER take them for granted, EVER! I love when an infertile couple announces on their blog that they are going to be parents (no matter how it happens...naturally, adoption, IVF, etc.) But as we all know, life isn't always full of rainbows and sunshine!

Today I am beyond sad...I have followed Amy's blog for quite some time now and she is SUCH an inspiration. Her Faith is amazing. Her love is amazing, and she and her husband seem like the cutest couple EVER! :) They are on their journey to parenthood and it has not been easy for them. A few days ago Amy announced on her blog that a young girl had chosen them to parent the baby she was pregnant with. I was ECSTATIC! (it's so crazy how you can be SO genuinely happy for someone who you've never met and perhaps they've never even looked at your blog! :) but I was thrilled for them!) Amy and her husband were cautiously optimistic (understandably so. They've been through their fair share of heartbreak), but hopeful! I just smiled as I read each of Amy's post and just knew in my heart that this baby would be theirs. I've been praying for them EVERYDAY. Unfortunately, Amy just posted that it was all a lie. Not Amy's account of the last few days, but the young girl on the other end of the phone had made it all up. My mouth dropped as I read the post and my heart broke. How does this happen!?!?!? How do you believe that God has answered your prayers that you will become a Mommy and then it's gone?!?!?! How does your heart recover from this?!??! I don't know, but Amy's beautiful heart made it obvious that she will forgive and her faith in God will not waiver. How amazing is that!?!??! Please pray for Amy, her husband and their family.

Amy, if you ever read this...you are AMAZING! I will pray EVERY.SINGLE.DAY for your heart, your mind and the baby(ies) that will call you, Mommy and DW, Daddy when God places them in your arms.

My, my, what a difference 3 days makes! :)

Hello friends! Life has been SO busy since I posted last Saturday (mainly at work), and when I actually had a few moments to catch up on blogs so many things had happened in blog world...one of my fellow Maryland bloggers had given birth to her beautiful baby girl, a couple who's blog I just adore has found out a young girl has chosen them to parent her child, and so much more. You miss a lot when you're gone for even a bit! :)

I'm certainly not going to complain about how busy work is, because this is the same place of employment that I was about to be laid off from a few months back, so I take my stress/overwhelmedness (not a word, I'm sure! :)) and thank God that I have it! :)

A week or so ago I entered a contest on Facebook that our local radio station was having to win tickets to a pre-screening of the movie Courageous. I found out on Friday that I won, and Manny and I are going on a date tonight to see it. I can't wait!!!!! :) Our church showed the trailer for the movie a few weeks back and ever since then I've wanted to see it. It's from the creators of Fireproof (AWESOME movie!) and Soul Surfer (although I haven't seen it, my husband watched it and couldn't stop raving about it!) so I'm excited to see it. I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully) and let you know how it was. Manny and I haven't been out, just the two of us, since June 10th (my friends wedding), so we are in desperate need of some "us" time. Don't get me wrong, I love my children more then the world, but hubby and I don't spend nearly enough "us" time together. We need to work on that! :)

We had a great weekend, even though my Ravens lost :(

And for good measure...

 My sweet, beautiful babies :)

 Walking to help Daddy get the groceries :)

 Always has to be self pics :) (Hubby isn't a fan of taking pics for me, because I usually make him take the same pic about 10 times! ;))

 The best self pic I could get of the 3 of us, LOL

 She has in pigtails! :) (she only took them out 15 about 3 times and then I would just put them back in and she'd leave them alone for awhile! :))

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 17

Hello Friends!

I'm slacking, I know! :) No excuses, just life :)

Day 17: Regrets

There are many people in this world who can say, "I don't have regrets. Everything I've done I've learned from, so no regrets." I am not one of those people. Although I did learn from everything I've been through, I do wish there were things I hadn't done, or things that I did do.

My regrets in life are all connected. My first regret is that I begged my mom to let me change schools the summer after my 10th grade year, get a boundary exception and go to high school with my best friend. She was popular. All of her friends became my friends and life was GREAT (or so I thought). Before I changed schools I was an "outcast". I was shy, awkward, overweight, and had only a few GOOD friends (little did I know, a few friends is all you ever need!!!! But when you're in high school, being popular is SO important). I had never touched a cigarette, never thought of drinking a beer, and certainly would NEVER imagine doing any sort of drugs, EVER! I transferred schools, had a TON of "friends"(or more like acquaintances, but I was popular so that's all I cared about, sadly!) I was hanging out with people who drank, had been smoking weed since middle school, and partied like no other 16 year olds I had ever known. My junior year, I stayed pretty good, and dabbled here and there in drinking a beer or smoking a cigarette. But needless to say that all went downhill and fast, my senior year! Which leads to my next regret...doing all the drugs I've done. I honestly wonder, quite often, how much different my life would be had I not spend the majority of my life from age 18-age 24 doing drugs. How much different would my brain be? How much different would life be? I realize that each step of my life and journey has happened because that's what was meant to be and had ONE thing not happened, it could have changed the entire course of where I am today, but I just wish I had never started doing drugs, EVER! You see friends, I wasn't someone who just dabbled in smoking weed every once and again or drank a beer once in blue moon. Oh no, unfortunately that's FAR from the truth. For the span of those years, on a regular basis (at least weekly) I did some sort of drug(s). I smoked weed (regularly), did ecstasy (regularly), ate acid (regularly), smoked crack (a few times), took prescription pain pills (regularly) and snorted cocaine (regularly) (there, I said it. Don't judge, please!) I would go for weeks at a time drinking pretty much EVERYDAY! Going out EVERY NIGHT! It disgusts me, literally, as I sit here and type all of that, but that was my life (sadly!) Although I can't say for sure, I'd be willing to bet that had I not found out on June 9, 2005 (7 days after my 24th birthday) that I was pregnant, I probably would have ended up dead. That's how bad off I was! The day I found out I was pregnant EVERYTHING stopped and I have not touched a drug since then (I have drank and smoked a cigarette since then). And then my last regret which is also linked to transferring schools, and doing drugs, is the fact that I never finished college. Clearly all the drugs and partying didn't allow time for schooling and studying! :( I have no doubt that I would have done big things with my life, had I never changed schools, and started doing drugs. I would have gone away to college, I would have gotten a college degree and made a career for myself. Instead, I stayed local, partied with my friends from high school, went to a local community college (I am NOT putting down community colleges AT ALL! So please don't misinterpret that statement. I just knew from when I was little that I would go away to school) and stopped going just credits shy of earning my AA in Mental Health and Human Services. Regrets, regrets, regrets.

But I do know that had one thing not happened, I may have never found God (I mean REALLY found him!), I may have never been as happy as I am today, and most importantly, I may not be staring at the two beautiful faces sitting in front of me, eating their cereal (Manny is helping my uncle move, or else I would have said 3 beautiful faces! ;))

Regrets are hard, but God ALWAYS knows what He is doing! : )

Have a great weekend friends! :)

Don't be jealous...

Of the AWESOME quality of these cell phone pics! ;) Here are a few pics I've taken with my phone over the past two weeks or so. I just LOVE these two! :)

Happy Thursday Friends!

 This "heart" caught my eye the other morning when I was getting ready for work. It made me smile :)

 These two make me smile

 Adorable! (my children AND my porch! ;) I LOVE Fall decorations! (once it gets to actually be Fall, I will add my haybale, real pumpkins, cornstalks, etc :))

 She's quite the multi-tasker :)

 My sleeping angels :)

 We try to make it a point to leave the house each morning together (Manny takes Manuel, I take Mia). Manuel likes to pop his head in the car to say bye to us :)

Giving Manuel's Build-A-Bear lovies :)

I LOVE good customer service!

Okay, so this isn't my typical post, as it has nothing to do with my family, my job, or anything along those lines, HOWEVER, I could not pass up an opportunity to give credit where credit is due! :)

Maybe you've been a lucky individual who has never dealt with poor customer service (if so, consider yourself L-U-C-K-Y!) but sadly, most of us deal with poor customer service way too often. It's a vicious cycle...the consumer is annoyed for something that may or may not be related to said product/company. Said company is contacted to remedy a situation, customer gets even more annoyed, customer service rep gets annoyed, and everyone USUALLY leaves unhappy and annoyed! ;)

I'd like to highlight a blog AND company that are just awesome...
Everyone knows or doesn't know and doesn't care that I LOVE entering giveaways! If I come across a fun blog who is giving away something I like, then I enter. (I've actually found some of my favorite blogging friends through giveaways they've had on their blogs). I've won a TON of free, awesome things from these giveaways (mostly for my kiddos). There has only been two instances where I've won something and never received the prize. In both instances I contacted the blog owner (who held the giveaway on behalf of a company) not to expect anything in return, but just to make them aware that a company their promoting is not following through. In the first instance the blog owner tried SO hard, for weeks to get me my prize, with no luck. The company provided her a tracking number (that wasn't even real!) and needless to say I never got my super adorable shirt for Mia! :( I chalked it up to a loss, was very thankful that the blog owner tried so hard and moved on (I need to bring myself to "un-like" the company on Facebook because every time I see their posts about how great of a store they are, I want roll my eyes and want to post something snarky, but I don't! ;))

But this post is about GOOD customer service! :) Back in July I entered a giveaway on the super sweet Amy's blog, Just Another Manic Momday for some good Blue Bunny ice cream (what can I say, I'm a sucker for sweets! :)) I won. Several weeks passed and I never received my "Bunny Bucks" in the mail. I decided to contact Amy and let her know that I wasn't expecting anything, after all, it's just ice cream ;) but I never received my coupons, just so she was aware. Amy responded immediately to my e-mail, apologizing greatly, and letting me know she was going to contact Blue Bunny and see what she could do. I thanked her, but again explained that I wanted nothing in return! :) A short time later, a representative, Janelle, from Blue Bunny e-mailed me, apologizing repeatedly, explaining that the coupons had been sent, but must have been lost in the mail. She told me that they were going to send me more Bunny Bucks along with some extra "goodies." Well friends, talk about a surprise, a super sweet gesture and all around great customer service when I opened up the package today (just a few days after my initial e-mail to Amy) and not only was there 5 Bunny Bucks (each good for a free carton of Blue Bunny products) but there was also two adorable ice cream bowls, an ice cream scooper, a Blue Bunny bean bag stuffed animal and an insulated lunch bag/ice cream carton holder. I thought this was all just SO sweet! Here I am, NOT a paying customer, a simple giveaway winner who was treated SO wonderfully! If you're in the market for some ice cream, check out Blue Bunny! They have a huge array of ice cream, ice cream novelties, and even a "lighter" line of frozen goodies!

Thank you Amy and Blue Bunny for making me realize that good customer service is not a thing of the past! :)

*I took a picture of my goodies, but can't find my camera cord. I'll share it soon! :) *

*The above reviews and opinions are my own. I was in no way compensated for this blog post. I only did this post because I was SO pleased with the customer service I was provided!*

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 13

So clearly I've been slacking on these but I do want to make an effort to participate when I feel led to write and today is one of those days! :)

Day 13: Favorite Quote or Bible verse

Hands down, my favorite Bible verse is Ephesians 2: 8-10
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

Love it! Very fitting for myself, my husband and for many others I know!

And the following are not quotes or Bible verses, but song lyrics that I LOVE...
And I have touched the scars upon His hands to see if they were real

He has walked the road before me, he knows just how I feel
When you feel that there's not anyone, who understands your pain
Just remember all of Jesus's suffering
-Jeremy Camp, "Healing Hand of God"

One of these days we all will stand in judgment for
Every single word that we have spoken
One of these days we all will stand before the Lord
Give a reason for everything we’ve done
And what I’ve done is
Trust in Jesus
My great Deliverer
My strong Defender
The Son of God
I trust in Jesus
Blessed Redeemer
My Lord forever
The Holy One, the Holy One
-Third Day, Trust in Jesus

And there is SO many more, but right now I am drawing a blank! :)

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