My Heart and Soul...

*Maxwell*

The instant that I heard you cry,
I knew I was in love.
The moment that I touched your face,
I felt blessed straight from above.

And never once did I believe
we'd have to make it on our own
decisions were made, bridges were burned
I just wish I would have known.

But the past is the past
and we've moved ahead-
no matter how difficult,
no matter what was said.

You are my little boy right now,
but soon you'll be a man-
I just hope that the way I've raised you
helps you follow God's amazing plan.

Cause little boy-
when I look at you
I see so much inside -
a heart that's overflowing
with joy you just can't hide.

Although we've been through pain and hurt
together we will stand-
proud to be our own family,
held safe in God's gracious hand.

Love,
Mommy

The month of April

April is speeding past me and I haven't gotten the chance to post some of the cute pictures I took this month!! So much has happened this month - I just have to document it (in super-speed:)!!


Here is Max checking out his Easter baskets from Mommy and Papa/Nana. He's acting like he's taking a bite out of his Resses Pieces "carrot!" The next picture is at Grandma GG's for Easter - Max hanging out with his cousin Janae!


Speaking of Janae - I CAN NOT believe how much she has grown up!! Her Jr. High Dance was in April, so I went to take a few pictures - she looked absolutely gorgeous...and much older than she actually is!!!!! Stop growing, you little stinker!





















April was also filled with birthday fun for some of my cousins little girls - Chas's girls Katie, Hannah, and Emily. We celebrated at the YMCA with them by going swimming, eating yummy cupcakes, and watching them open gifts! After we had gotten out of the pool - Max took a big bite of his cupcake, looked around the room and said to no one in particular: "Oh BABY, this is the best day EVER!!" Everyone just started cracking up laughing at him!!
Max and Nick were the only two little boys at the party...with about 30 little girls!! It was so funny!!





We swam, swam, and swam some more...Max was disappointed when it was time to get out. Here we are enjoying the water. The picture of the girls holding hands is so
sweet!!

Broken...

The splitting apart of our little family has been hard in more ways then I can list. Each phase has knocked the wind out of me, unraveled my security as if it were an old sweater -

it's all-reaching and suffocating.

Tonight I spoke to my sister-in-law on the phone. I guess she would technically be my "ex-sister-in-law" - but I refuse to say that. She is a huge part of my life - has been for about 7 years. We didn't see each other all the time - only about once a week, but we just had this connection. She is so strong - just one of those women who can do it all. She is the sister I never had, someone I look up to and can talk to about anything. Which is why tonight made my heart hurt - and made me smile all at once.

She joked that she had lost her photographer (I was always the one who took pictures of all the kids)...and she said that no one could ever replace the photographer she lost. I'm not trying to lay our whole conversation out on the blog world - but I just had to say how much joy that brought me...and how I've cried about it secretly after I got off the phone. It is just another reminder of what I have lost. What Max has lost...how our lives have changed in so many unmistakable ways.

I know all this craziness is going to CHANGE our relationship...I just hope it doesn't HURT it. I love that girl, and will always hold her close to my heart.

You are my sunshine...

When we got home today the sunshine beckoned us outside and we found all kinds of fun things to occupy us, like:

playing in the sandbox... taking a walk in the woods to find mushrooms...

smiling up at the big blue sky...throwing rocks into the pond and listening to them splash...

showing off our muscles...and climbing all over trees...To end the evening, we rode the "rhino" over to Grandpa and Grandma GG's (Raber's) to visit, and then headed over to Uncle Cole's new house to check out the progress. On our ride, we had to go on this dirt road with big mud puddles that were impossible to miss! I said "Yuck! This road is so muddy!" Max looked at me with this disgusted look on his face and said "MOM - a little mud will NOT hurt you!" It totally cracked me up because he sounded like an adult...I couldn't stop laughing!!

Max- thank you for the day of sunshine...and I'm not talking about the weather! I love you, my sweet boy!!

Give me Jesus...

It's Easter morning and I'm sooooo excited to say after my last post (was a little sad/depressing) that Jesus is RISEN!! I added a new song for this post that me and my family talked about this morning - we all love this song and it seems fitting this morning for such a glorious topic:) It's called "Give me Jesus" and is being sung by Jeremy Camp...I hope everyone is having an amazing Easter! Max has been with his Dad since last night, so when he comes home (in a couple of hours) I'm sure I will have new pictures to post of him and his Easter basket - and tonight we are having a family get-together (so lots of new pictures to come:)!!

Last night we had a birthday party for Kev at El Ranchito and enjoyed catching up with friends and eating great food:) Here are a few pictures from last night:

The birthday boy and his party-planner (girlfriend, Sarah:)!! Can you tell how excited he is about his sombraro and fried ice cream??? Ha ha!!

Me, Sarah, and Alyssa - love these girls:)!!

Before church this morning my mom snapped a few pictures - I thought they were cute and just had to share:

Me and Gabriel :)

Me and my little brother, Clayton Lee!

His only Son...

I've been rolling it around in my head all day - the fact that God didn't have to do this. He didn't have to send His Son here to save us. We didn't deserve it...still don't. We still sin, we are faced with decisions and we stare God in the face and say "I know what is right, but I want to do it my way."

He made the ultimate sacrifice...He sent his beloved Son here to earth, where sin surrounded him and everyone turned against Him. And God KNEW what was going to happen.

I just can't stop comparing this to the love I have for my son, and trying to imagine making this decision about Max. This was God's only Son - and if you have a child you know that all encompassing LOVE(even though we can't come close to loving as Christ loves) - and God sent him to take all the punishment for our sins. Do you know how heart-wrenching this day must have been for God. He felt every lashing, every thorn from the crown, every kick, every wound as if it was Him going thru it. He watched as the people He had created KILLED His only son. I can't imagine the pain this must have wracked Him with...the tears that poured down His face...how bad He wanted to take the hurt away from Jesus. The thing is that we CAN'T imagine, we can't even comprehend...we just have to be thankful and show that by honoring CHRIST.

The Bible says "They stripped him and put a scarlet rob on him, and made a crown from long throns and put it on his head, and placed a stick in his right hand as a scepter and knelt before him in mockery. "Hail , King of the Jews," they yelled. And they spat on him and grabbed the stick and beat him on the head with it." -Matthew 27: 28-30

This was the Son of God...and they were so cruel to Him. Beating Him, spitting on Him, mocking Him. Try to imagine your child going thru this...and you having to just stand back and watch. It is the most cruel thing I can think of. And this happened to our Savior - to take away our sins...THANK YOU, JESUS!! (even though thank you will never be enough)

My heart breaks today thinking about all of this...but it also soars thinking that I am washed clean. The sins I have committed have been forgiven and God loves me enough to sacrifice EVERYTHING for me.

Here are some pictures of my own son - whom I hope will one day fully understand the sacrifice Christ made for him. I want to teach him about true, unselfish, unending LOVE. Max and his cousin Nick riding bikes...

The whole gang (Katie, Nick, Hannah, Emily, and Max) enjoying the kinda-warm weather!

My own fairytale...

Life isn't full of fairytale endings...

as hard as I tried to make my life look like a fairytale, the more problems kept creeping up. I used to drive myself insane with looking at blogs and wanting to have "perfect lives" like what I was reading about. I wanted the perfect looking kids, with perfect looking clothes, in brand-new houses full of brand-new perfect looking stuff.

The more I learn about life and the more I dig into God's word, I have decided I'm more than o.k. with my imperfections...with Max's imperfections, with our life full of imperfections. My marriage to Gil definantly did not end like a fairytale...and is far from "happily ever after..." But that's o.k. with me now, in Psalm 119: 71 it says "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."

I love this verse...cause it makes me think - "What??? It was GOOD for me to be afflicted????" That's crazy, right?? Not really, the more I think about it, the less crazy it sounds - cause when I'm at my lowest is when God draws me the nearest. Well, God always holds me near but I seem to feel his embrace more when I am afflicted.

When I was a little girl I read all the books and watched all the movies about the princesses - staring at their gorgeous dresses and wanting to dance with the prince one day. Well - guess what? I'm making my own fairytale...and one day I will dance with my Prince - He is getting me thru all this junk that happens in real life so that one day I can go to Heaven and have my first dance with Him. Just how magical does that sound?? Better than any fairytale ending I could ever come up with on my own...

Spring Break '09

You're probably thinking that since I haven't posted (except for my tiny post on "chocolate") during my Spring Break, it's because we've been so busy with fun-filled days of excitment.

WRONG.

Just like Christmas break when we were hit by the stomach-flu bug, this break has been marred by this cold/cough/chills/fever thingy going around:(! My mom and dad started out the week with it, Wed. me and Max got it, then Thurs. my brother got hit by it. None of us can get over it either...this lingering cough is extremely annoying!! We are going stir crazy around here...I'm talking knock-down, drag-out fights for the couch around here, guys...and the couch isn't even comfortable!

Max and I have spent alot of time on our oversized chair, wrapped up tightly in blankets to ward off the chills...we only ventured as far as the kitchen once a day in search of our cakesters.

My camera has stayed securely in its case, so no pictures to share. No one wants to see pictures of us with red noses and watery eyes...

I'm working on a post about how life isn't always full of fairytale endings...promise it will come soon (hopefully with updated pictures). Hope everyone enjoys the sunshine today - love you all!!