The Aquarium

My parents took all of us to the Aquarium in Grapevine, Texas today and the girls had a great time. It was our first time going since we moved to Texas. Claire and Grace loved looking at all the fish and Hannie fought through her nap so she could stay awake the whole time and take it all in. Auntie Julia came along and spent most of the trip holding either Claire or Grace through the whole aquarium. My childhood friend Kristin was also able to join us with her two little ones, Andi and Beau. Claire kept referring to the sting rays as Mr. Ray because that is the name of the sting ray in Finding Nemo. So here are some pics from our trip.

My dad and Jules with all the girls (Grace, Hannie, Andi, Claire)

Claire and Andi looking at all the fish

looking at sharks

Claire and Andi loved playing with the water

Hannie and Beau hanging out together

The girls were so good about posing for us

Auntie Julia and the girls

Claire's favorite part was watching the sting rays

Jump Park

A new trampoline jump park opened in Fort Worth this summer so my parents decided to take the girls last week. We had been once before with our playgroup and the girls LOVED it. It is a huge gym of trampolines and they have a big pit of foam squares that you can jump into. This time Gracie got the hang of it and was able to jump a lot with out falling. Claire was trying to do tricks in the air and was getting pretty good at the end of it. Even baby Hannie enjoyed getting into the foam pit and bouncing with her Papi (grandpa). After an hour of jumping my parents treated the girls and I to frozen yogurt and they let the girls pick whatever toppings they wanted. It was a great way to get out of the heat and have a fun time.

Gracie getting some air

Claire enjoying herself

Hannie, Papi, and Claire in the foam pit

Doing tricks

It was hard to get pics that weren't blurry from all the jumping

Sisters in the foam pit

Claire loved jumping into the foam squares

My sweet Hannie

Frozen yogurt treats

Always posing for the camera

She really loaded hers with toppings

I love having GIRLS!

I live in a girl world and love it. Claire and Grace are always wanting to dress up, put on jewelry, walk in high heels, put on their lip gloss, play make-believe, and twirl. Every time they are in my room they want to use my lotion and be 'spritzed' with my body spray. They love to have their nails painted and serve tea. Both girls love to sing and dance and put on performances in our living room. I am just enjoying these special moments and feeling very blessed to be a mommy to 3 little princesses.

On her way to a princess birthday party. She picked out all her accessories and requested her hair be in a bun.

Playing with my Grandma's costume jewelry.

Posing with her boa

Daddy, Claire and Hannie

Another Daddy's girl in the making

Gracie in her horse drawn carriage

Taco Bowls

I decided to make taco bowls for the family the other night and it was a big success. I usually fry tacos, which takes forever and of course they are not the healthiest thing we could eat. So I looked up taco bowls and loved what I found. You just spray a softened tortilla on both sides with vegetable oil and then place in an upside down cupcake pan. Bake them at 375 for 10-12 minutes and you have healthy taco bowls. I put out lots of fun toppings for the meat and the girls really enjoyed it. 

Taco bowls

Fun!

Ready to eat

Biting it

Tasting it

Enjoying it!

Your Family--God's Way

I forgot to post about Jason teaching Sunday school at our church.  He was asked to teach a 3 week series on family and has really been enjoying the opportunity to teach. You can listen to his first week on our church's website if you are interested. If you go to the website, click on sermons, then click on launch sermon player and a list will come up. Just click on 'Your Family-God's Way--Week 1 by Jason Kruis and you can listen to his teaching.

Our church's website is: http://cbcfortworth.org/

Conviction

I just had to post this wonderfully convicting excerpt I read this morning. After my devotional time, before I started my prayer time, I read this from a book that I am thoroughly enjoying right now called, The Hole in our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung. In regards to prayer DeYoung quotes William Law (1686-1781) in A Serious call to a Devout and Holy Life:

"I take it for granted that every Christian, that is in health, is up early in the morning; for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early, because he is a Christian, than because he is a labourer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or has business that wants him...
Let this therefore teach us to conceive how odious we must appear in the sight of Heaven, if we are in bed, shut up in sleep and darkness, when we should be praising God; and are such slaves to drowsiness, as to neglect our devotions for it.
For if he is to be blamed as a slothful drone, that rather chooses the lazy indulgence of sleep, than to perform his proper share of worldly business; how much more is he to be reproached, what would rather lie folded up in bed, than be raising up his heart to God in acts of praise and adoration!...
Sleep is such a dull, stupid state of existence, that even amongst mere animals, we despise them most which are most drowsy.
He, therefore, that chooses to enlarge the slothful indulgence of sleep, rather than be early at his devotions to God, chooses the dullest refreshment of the body; before the highest, noblest employment of the soul; he chooses that state which is a reproach to mere animals, rather than exercise which is the glory of Angels."


That last paragraph was extremely convicting to me! Needless to say I had a great prayer time this morning :) All those who seek after our Lord, let this be an encouragement to you to seek constant communion with our Redeemer through the act of prayer.

Breakfast and Devotional Time

I have been trying to spice up our breakfast routine by decorating the food, cutting up fruit in fun shapes, and trying new things. The girls have really enjoyed it and it has made it much easier for them to sit while I do our morning devotions. I love our morning routine, once we are all seated I read to them from different children's devotionals and as they get older they are interacting more with the material. My goal is to get Claire and Grace familiar with scripture, bible stories, hymns, and even church history. It is refreshing to me to start my day proclaiming the excellencies of our Lord and teaching my sweet children about our precious creator. My favorite devotional is still, My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. Claire and Grace love the stories and this has been a great way to get Claire memorizing scripture. We have done this one a number of times and it is wonderful to hear her little voice speaking truth and wisdom from the bible. Right now for morning devotions we are reading one story from, God is Great: A Toddler's Bible Storybook by Carolyn Larsen, and one page from The Church History ABCs by Stephen Nichols and Ned Bustard. I also like going through the Big Picture Story Bible, I will do that one again after we have finished up the 2 books we are working on now.

My sweet mother in law gets me so many great devotional tools to use with the girls. Thanks to her we had a great time doing seasonal devotions during Christmas time and Easter time. At Christmas time we went through Christmas Carols for a Kid's Heart by Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada and Claire loved learning all the Christmas hymns. In addition to singing a Christmas hymn she learned about the history behind the hymn. At Easter time we read Benjamin's Box by Melody Carlson and did that along side the Resurrection Eggs. Both girls LOVED this and I'm looking forward to doing it again next Easter. The other Easter book we read was The First Easter by Carol Heyer and the girls loved all the pictures in this book.

Finally, I just started adding in one more thing to our morning devotional time and that is, catechism questions. We are only doing a few questions a day and reviewing ones we have already gone over. Claire has caught on quick and the other day Gracie answered the first question of, 'Who made you?' In her little voice she looked at me and said, 'God made me'. We are only on question 6 and I think I might be reviewing these for awhile with Claire. Here are the first 6 questions in the catechism:
1. Who made you? God made me
2.What else did God make? God made all things
3. Why did God make you and all things? For His own glory
4. How can you glorify God? By loving Him and doing what He commands.
5. Why ought you to glorify God? Because He made me and takes care of me.
6. Are there more gods than one? There is only one God.

So here are some pictures of the girls eating their 'fun' breakfast foods

Cream of Wheat with blueberries and heart shaped watermelon

They loved the watermelon hearts

Gracie is my big fruit eater

Mango, banana, blueberry smoothies

Yum!

What a sweetheart

Fun in July

We have been loving the July weather that the Lord has blessed us with. We have been out and about enjoying the warm weather. The girls and I have been keeping busy with birthday parties, outings, my parents, and having fun at home. 

Claire all ready for a birthday party

Gracie decided to wear clip on earrings to the party

They love getting all dressed up and accessorizing

She kept shaking her head so she could feel the earrings move on her ears

Our Central Market outing, so glad Hannie can sit in cart now

Claire pretending to be trapped 

The girls always like the playground

A tea party with 2 of my childhood dolls

Riding their favorite horse (my dad)

4th of July

The girls had a blast this 4th of July. We celebrated with friends and were blessed with great weather. The kids played outside in the sprinkler and actually told us they were cold, what a great comment considering it is JULY! We had great food and I made patriotic cheesecakes for the occasion (such an easy recipe from my sweet mother in law). The girls enjoyed homemade ice-cream and Claire held her first sparkler and loved it.

Happy 4th Hannie!

Enjoying homemade ice-cream

Gracie ready to get into the sprinklers

My patriotic cheesecakes

Claire

This must be her signature pose

Playing in the sprinkler

Being silly

Holding her first sparkler

She loved it