Lights Out

We have implemented a new policy in our house. The lights go out at 10 pm no matter what. At this time Grace has been sleeping for 3-4 hours so we've had plenty of adult time and we are tired and not doing anything productive. The problem comes when we let ourselves stay up later for no good reason. Then we start the next day a little more tired than necessary. I've always valued a good nights sleep and I always went to bed early when I was teaching because I wanted to be my best at school. I should want to be my best at home too. I also spend tons of time thinking about and working on Grace's schedule so she is a well rested little girl. Why wouldn't I want to be well rested too? So instead of staying up until 10:30 or 11, the lights will be going out in our house at 10.

I thought of writing this blog post because I just read an interesting article about sleep in National Geographic. Check out it out HERE.

Now I think I'm going to take a quick cat nap before Grace gets up from her nap.

C25K: Week 1

I'm happy to report that Matt and I have completed week 1 of The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. The goal is to go from not running at all to being able to run a 5K in 9 weeks. Seeing that I actually have been working out regularly since 6 weeks after Grace was born and have run 5K's a few times without any sort of training I decided I could handle this challenge. My workouts this last year have consited of spinning and strength training classes at the gym. After taking a couple weeks off because I was babysitting I decided I needed to change things up a little. I also felt as if I was lacking a good cardio workout. So the running began. I don't have a 5K that I want to run, I don't even know if I will complete week 2 but this week felt good. Feel free to visit the link above to see what this weeks running plan was. I'll try to keep you updated on my running progress over the next 2-8 weeks depending on how long I last.

Outside

I couldn't decide whether to title this post "Playing Outside" or "Trying to Eat Everything Outside" so I went with "Outside." Due to the beautiful weather we have spent lots of time outside. Grace loves pushing her walker up and down the sidewalk and driveway with frequent stops to converse with her shadow. It is pretty cute.
She also has sampled all the goodness of woodchips, dirt, grass, dandelions, and rocks. I try really hard to keep those things out of her mouth but sometimes I'm just not fast enough. You can see leftover dandelion on her lip in the picture below.
She also hates crawling in the grass so she gets up on her hands and feet which might lead to her walking* everywhere sooner.
*Grace is rapidly improving on the walking front. She has learned to stand herself up from a sitting position without holding on to anything. She loves to walk back and forth between people across the whole entire room. She has even taken to walking back and forth between me and furniture recently.

Book Review: Forgotten God

I received the book "Forgotten God", by Francis Chan, for Christmas and I read it just after the new year. I hadn't read any of Chan's writing before and I was pleased to find that he wrote in a very user-friendly but challenging way. I found him to be authentic and fresh in the way he talked about how we as Christians need to depend on God and live by the Holy Spirit. I appreciated the biblical references that were littered in the main points he presented. I walked away from the book with a convicted heart wanting to surrender more to God and to let the Holy Spirit have control in my life. I would recommend this book to anyone who is open to being challenged in their walk with God. Here are some of my favorite quotations from the book:

"For some reason, we don't think we need the Holy Spirit. We don't expect the Holy Spirit to act. Or if we do, our expectations are often misguided or self-serving."

"If it's true that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that our bodies are the Holy Spirit's temple, then shouldn't there be a huge difference between the person who has the Spirit of God living inside of him or her and the person who does not?"

"[The Holy Spirit] assures us that we are in right standing with and loved by God. He guarantees believers of the gift of new life in Christ. He assures us that we have nothing to fear because we are His children and He is powerful. He tells us that we are accepted, fully and unconditionally."

"I don't want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn't be doing this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through."

"What disturbs me most is when we're not really bothered that God living in us has not made much of a noticeable difference."

Birthday Girls

We have been really blessed to have a couple of friends in our lives that have daughters born right around Grace's birthday. And we all happen to be in the same small group at church. So of course we had to throw a joint birthday party. We invited our small group and a handful of friends from town that we each know separately. So it was neat to meet new people and watch all the little ones interact. One of the moms, Kortny, had thrown a family birthday party for her daughter and did pink with zebra print for the theme so we borrowed her decorations and added a few of our own. I also made them coordinating dresses. I think it all turned out super cute.


Of course the highlight of every 1st birthday party is watching the little ones eat cake. It was a riot. Ava ate hers daintily one little bite at a time. I don't think she got any cake on the floor until Grace dumped her plate upside down. Olivia displayed her sweet tooth that she inherited from her mom. She ate the whole cupcake in huge bites and went for all of Grace's leftovers. And Grace just shoved hers in her mouth, crawled all over the eating area, and stole the other girls' food even though she had plenty of her own.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for flowers from my wonderful husband.

Happy Easter

Some evidence from our hike that spring is here.

Happy Easter to everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and had time to reflect on the awesomeness of what happened on that Sunday morning many years ago. I thanked God for his sacrifice on Friday and rejoiced in the miracle that God did by raising Jesus from the dead on Sunday. This morning at church the worship band played my top two favorite songs at so it was a great Sunday. After church we went home and had ham steak on the grill with some ok sides and then Grace and I took a nap. Then we headed out to our favorite park about 30 minutes away for a wonderful afternoon hike. It was a wonderful Easter.

Playing with Great Grandma H's Easter Eggs on Saturday.

Giving some love to her bunny from Great Grandma H and dressed up for church on Sunday morning.

Hiking with Daddy.