Sunday, December 27, 2009

What a wonderful world...

well, CHRISTmas has come and gone! What a great season. We get to cherish our faith in Jesus, spend quality time with our spouses and children, have joyous times with our family and even our friends. We get to reflect back on the year and look forward to the year ahead.

i made it. i am 90% better. still have some healing to do and i still can't hear out of one of my ears but i am happy i am on the road to recovery. zach is doing better also! since he doesn't have school this next week, i'm gonna make sure we have a super great week together!

hope you all had a wonderful christmas celebration. we did.

i am posting pictures from our recent christmas celebrations with jer's side of the family (we celebrated the day after thanksgiving because all of jer' s family was in town then) and of course the most recent christmas fun with my family. to cap things off, we celebrated on the 26th with our dear dear friends - the jarvis's... some pics of that as well.

love you all and to all a good night...



me, courtney and her daughter tessa - celebrating christmas day after thanksgiving with jer's parents


jason, monique and zach


baby sophie gives a smile with her mommy- monique


tessa and logan holding hands


boys jumping for joy under tree... precious!


the cousins


adam steals a moment with his girl, tess


the thomas trio


my boy... aka... thor



papa steals a moment with the little one



kiss for grandma on christmas morning



me and my little sweetness



oh happy day! Merry Christmas!



sweet smile



stud in a tie on christmas eve



jarvis friends



sweet joy and me



the crazy four...



our sweet children. they LOVE each other...

Monday, December 21, 2009

seriously?

there are days and then there are D A Y S!
(sit down and prepare yourself, this is a long one..) :)

all i can tell you is that thursday was a day for having a glorious breakfast with a very dear friend, make almond brittle and share it with family and friends alike. this past friday night i had all sorts of happiness in my heart. i was excited for a fun evening out with super lovely friends whom we haven't seen in just about a year and the weekend was going to be full of super fun things to do and see with my cute little family. we were going to go to a "skate for autism" function with our dear friends saturday evening. jer and i were going to then head to a show at the local theater arts center featuring "Linda Eder", and into sunday we were going to go to church and in the evening head out to our favorite mini church for some good christmas party cheer.

yes, this was going to be our weekend. it was going to be awesome. let the christmas festivities begin...

hmmm, so the almond brittle was made and as i was finishing up the delish treat, i poured vanilla into the boiling pot of sweet goodness and out pops some boiling goodness onto my eyeball. awesome. ignored it. wore my contact. (mistake) and my eye became infected and swollen, burned. nice....

oh and did i tell you that i had to cancel my breakfast date (after breakfast was already made and she was on her way?) because i forgot that i had a meeting with Z's counselors for his academic year thus far? yup, mother of the year....

well, we DID have a lovely dinner with bob and patti friday night. had a Great time. felt great, minus the eye. ate great. good solid time with friends and my man. came home, felt a little chilled....

woke up early saturday morning all chilled and sweating and with a crazy fever. aches, here we come. oh yes, flu - thanks for joining me. love it.

as i stumbled over into the guest room trying not to contaminate my husband and quarantine myself from the boys, jer comes into the room with zach. he woke up saturday morning with pink eye. i can hardly move. time to call my parents! (poor jerry!)

so i have the flu and zach is not doing great. saturday eve turned into one of the biggest snow storms for our little neighborhood... 24 inches and actually really a glorious sight to behold. it was/is beautiful... of course, can't get to the doctor for my flu nor can we do anything for zach's eye ... so it spreads into the other one. (big big "ugh")

sunday was much of the same. my parents have been a super HUGE help and even jer's parents came by on sunday with lunch. that was truly so nice of them to help out that way! :)

monday (today) school was cancelled due to the snow and zach woke up telling us his "ear was broken." took him to the doctor and he has an ear infection. did i mention that i am starting to feel better but my ear in in excruciating pressure pain and almost is debilitating? yea, nice... not sure what to do there...

school was just cancelled for tomorrow so there is reprieve....YET zach just started having a horrible allergic reaction to his medicine and it scares the living crazy out of me, so the all night vigil is about to begin. i just want to cry because nothing seems to be going right...

(SIGH)

this is me right now...





Now that i have complained my guts out to all of you... let me share what my heart WANTS to share with you.

i am SO thankful for a husband who loves me in spite of my sickness. who takes good care of his family. works hard. gets up and stays up late to shovel a driveway 24 inches high with snow so we are safe. thankful for the little snickers bar he left with my soup because he knew it would make me happy. for changing dirty diapers and taking care of the 2 cutest little boys in the world. and of course he is not bad to look at! :)

i am SO thankful for my parents. what they wouldn't do for me. not sure. from hunting down their own doctor to prescribe tamiflu for me on a saturday when no one was open, to taking on the boys so i could sleep. changing dirty diapers. making memories with my boys in the snow. driving me to the doctors, picking up prescriptions. taking care of me. being so thoughtful and dropping their lives so my boys and me would be taken care of. wow. (and i'm sure there is more....)

i am SO thankful for my in-laws. i know they are praying for us to get better. what is better than that? also thankful for the taco lunch they made for jer and my parents and even macaroni and cheese for the boys. they are very thoughtful and i am grateful.

nothing makes me more THRILLED in my heart than having jerry and logan be completely healthy. so so so thankful for that! continually praying it stays that way!

very thankful for my friends who have emailed or texted or called just to check on me. nothing like good friends to go through this life with...

of course, very thankful for my boys... there is not enough love in the world to share with you how i feel about my guys. each one is unique and has my heart. God was too good to me to give me them!

AND nothing compares to the love and gratefulness i have for JESUS. My SAVIOR. MY KING born on christmas day. as we quickly approach christmas day, let us not forget the ONE who came to SAVE us from it all! He is my HOPE, my ROCK. Happy birthday Jesus! Most thankful for you!

whew! there you have it.
times may be tough. sickness may be prevalent and there may seem to be no relief in sight... but i know Jesus has my back. He will protect me and zach and my family. if i continue to put my HOPE and trust in Him, this might just turn out to be the most fond memory and best christmas i've ever had....

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Logan Bennett...



i can't believe my little buddy is 2 years old today!
where does the time go?

what can i say about my littlest little man....

he is goofy. he loves making silly faces. he is stubborn. he loves to laugh. he really loves to dance. he is a huge helper. he loves his brother. his best buddy is his papa. he's a good boy. he likes praying. he loves any kind of pasta and especially loves cheese and fruit. loves playing with cars and balls and likes reading books. (the list goes on and on, really...)

he is a joy. a love. a promise to us from God. a gift. a treasure...

happy birthday my sweet boy. we love you!!!


my baby - the day he was born!


logan at 4 months old... already selling insurance! ha!


my boy at 5 months!


not sure of the snow...but super cute!


me and my boy ... nearly 2!


taking a walk in the woods in tennessee with grandma and papa...


crazy, funny, silly 2 year old...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

awww!

i love my man.

he is great.

he is handsome as heck...

he is a hard worker and great provider for my family.

he is funny.

he gives our boys "body slams" and they LOVE it!

he loves the Lord.

he is kind and generous.

i love my man....

Saturday, October 24, 2009

life at it's fullest...

my man took yesterday off from work and we decided to take the boys and my parents to storybook land. we had a blast. last evening we were home after a fabulous day and started having some fun with my camera. in the moment, after major giggles, dancing, singing, jumping, wrestling and cuddles... i realized, yet again, how cool my God is for giving me my family. i just love my boys. jerry, zach and logan are the very best things that ever happened to me. they bring me such joy and happiness. they make my heart so proud and full. every moment together is a moment i cherish. sure, we have our not so joyful days or patient days but God always finds a way to remind me that HOPE continues to be there...regardless. i am utterly blessed and thankful and overwhelmed by these specific presents in my life as well as blessings that include my mom & dad, jer's parents, as well as my sister (& in laws) and brothers in laws and close network of friends. whew! it brings me to my knees.

thank you God. thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!!!



jer and boys yesterday at storybook land...


me and my buddy z...


mr L is my ace of hearts


my parents and boys doing a victory cheer for the phillies... at storybook land


zach coming down excitedly on a slide


logan holding on tightly to papa... his right hand man


my crazy boys together


my favorite people in the world


daddy and zach playing... last night


boys dancing last night...this is an every night ritual. so fun!


silly boys


jumping for glee... love his little face...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

disney world

for the past 10 days my family went to the greatest place on earth... disney world! the entire braatz group met out in florida for some really fantastic days. we all had a great time. we laughed, we walked and walked, we celebrated my birthday :), we dressed up in costume and participated in the not so scary halloween experience (a blast!), we saw and did so many fun things, we ate tons, and hardly slept! :) we did enjoy our place of residence too. contemporary has new villas and our room looked over the magic kingdom where we could see fireworks nightly. it was awesome! the time went by quickly and we already are excited about the possibility of a next time. most importantly, we got to spend time together as a family. we all do love each other and it was fun just being together. God is so great!

i, of course, along with the rest of the crew took many of hundreds of pics but here is just a little recap of what we did!

M I C.... K E Y... M O U S E!!!





courtney (jer's sister), adam and their baby girl, tessa



jason (jer's brother), monique and baby sophie on the peter pan ride



the castle from logan's perspective



big smiles on tess in the morning



logan and zach's favorite...especially logan! buzz and woody!



the braatz boys



on pooh ride



z and mickey mouse. cutest. picture. ever



my pirates dressed up for halloween party at magic kingdom



me and zach waiting to go into chef mickey's!