Goodbye 2012.. Hello 2013

As 2012 comes to an end I have been thinking about all the memorable moments that our family has shared and I can truly say we have been blessed with a great life! The year started off with us celebrating the day that we bought our first house on January 17th, 2009. We were so proud to finally be home owners and have cherished all the memories made here over the last 3 years. Feburary 2 we celebrated 4 years of marriage and heres to many more to come. This year we have also spent countless hours with our friends at the lake and those are moments that one can never forget, watched several of our wonderful friends tie the knot, welcomed Kendal into the world after waiting what seemed like forever, celebrated 3 wonderful years with Peyton (Where has the time gone?), watched Peyton move into the big girl class at gymnastics which was a very proud moment. Trey got promoted at work and I completed another half marathon. We also took the girls on their first big vacation to sea world and had a wonderful time! These are just a few of the wonderful things we have shared in 2012! I am excited to ring in a New Year and see what 2013 has in store for us!

This World Is Not My Home....

Last night I talked to several other ladies that also have kids about the shooting that occured on Friday. We discussed how it makes us live in fear to take our children anywhere and that it is so sad that no where is considered a "safe" place anymore! This story was on my mind all night last night after talking to them and all I could think of is why does the media keep naming the shooter and doing stories on him? Isn't that just giving him the victory that he wanted by making his name so well known? The stories instead should only be focused on the very innocent children that paid the price of this illness and the teachers/people that gave their lives to protect the kids. In my prayers I prayed that as my two girls get old enough to attend school that their teachers, principles or anyone else that will be among them while at school will have just as much courage & loving hearts as those did to do anything to protect them! After thinking & talking about this story pretty much all night I ended having a dream that I was stuck in a classroom and that a guy dressed in all black came in and didn't say a word. Instead stood there looking around before drawing his gun. In my dream as I hide under my desk I was praying that the sounds would all just stop and the maddness would end. I woke up my heart was pounding nearly out of the chest! The fear and helplessness that I felt was overwhelming! It just broke my heart all over again to think about how those people & children must of felt! So of course as any mother would do I jumped out of bed, went to each girls rooms to check on them. Suddenly a song came into my head, I believe it was Carrie Underwood that said it best when she said, "This is not my home, it's not where I belong. This is just a stop on the way to where I'm going. I am not afraid...." and so on. God does not want us to live in fear, he wants us to put all of our faith in him that he will protect us and our loved ones so this is what I am going to do. I have decided not to let those people win in their ways to make us live in fear of them. God is bigger & he will overcome!