hmmm...

So, I know that I should be grateful for something today, but it's getting kind of hard to think of something every day! However, I saw a pin on Pinterest that said, "What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?" ruh ro... (I'm thinking Scooby Doo in my head, if you didn't get that! haha!)

I know for a fact that there are so many things in my life that I should be thankful for today, but I'm realizing how much I take for granted without realizing it. Thanking God for every part of my life is not something I'm used to doing, and I think that's kind of why I wanted to do this gratitude blog. I want to be challenged to look past the obvious, and be "forced" (in a sense) to find something to be grateful for even when I don't feel like it.

Tonight I am thankful that Jared is willing to put Sophia to bed. This is not a new thing, he does it pretty much every night, but it's one less thing I need to do in the evenings. She goes down so much better for him, and after being with kids all day long, that's one thing that I don't mind letting him do. Please don't get me wrong-I love that girl more than just about anything in this world, and nothing could replace the time I spend with that girl. But I think that we all need that break at times.

Co-workers

Well, it was another very chaotic day today at work! (What's new, right?!) We had several teachers out for a variety of reasons, and had too many kids for the staff we had. I am SO thankful for my co-workers today. Although our job is stressful, and not always the most fun, there is always someone willing to help when needed, and I am so very thankful for that. I don't have any pictures today (because it was craziness!), but if I did, it would be a picture of my wonderful friends at work.Thank you to all the staff today who changed classrooms, stayed overtime, or just gave a helping hand when needed. It was VERY much appreciated!!

Family Time!

This afternoon Jared was telling me that both Venus and Jupiter were visible in the night sky, so we decided to check it out. We drove out to the elementary school in town around sunset so we could have a better view of the sky. Sophia loves to see the moon in the morning and evenings, so we thought she might like it. And she did! She was so excited every time she saw it--it was too cute!

She chose her own outfit as we were leaving...

Pink penguin pajamas, pink tutu and pink snow boots

When we got out there, we realized that the moon wasn't quite as low as we thought it would be, so it was hard to see from inside the van. Jared and Sophia decided to go for a walk to see the moon and planets.

She was "frweezing"!

We also enjoyed watching the jets and airplanes flying through the sky.

The best picture we got of the three. I'm not positive about this, but I think that Jupiter is on the left, and Venus is to the right of the moon. (If someone knows different, please tell me!)

While we were sitting in the van, she decided to put in her "contacts". She watches me put my contacts in and out, and likes to pretend that she does the same. Here is a short video I got. It's too cute.

Winter Youth Retreat

 I had a great weekend up at Amigo Centre with youth from Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. I had the privilege to lead worship with my dad, Jeremy Kempf and David Kempf. I had so much fun, and learned a lot. Usually when I help lead worship at church I play piano and most of the songs are led more with piano than guitar. This weekend, the guitar led more, and I played "background", if you will, on the piano. It was very different than what I am used to, but it was a good challenge for me.

I also had a great time hanging out with the youth from our church. Here are some pictures from the weekend...

 

Sophia and Jared came up Saturday afternoon and she had fun coloring with Mary.

We played A LOT of mafia as a group.

The dining hall at camp

Woke up to the sun shining bright on the frozen lake this morning.

The snow-covered trees this morning

The meeting room

Smile, girls! It's Sunday morning! :)

Part of our youth group

 

 

Euchre!

 

 

 

 

 

It was a fun, exhausting, Spirit-filled weekend! Thanks to all who helped make it a success! :)

Grandparents

Today I am thankful for my grandparents. They have done more for us than I could ever imagine, and I am so thankful for that. I am most thankful however that Sophia gets to spend so much time with them.

Kids!

Today I am thankful for kids! They make me smile!

Here are a few things I have heard from my kiddos at the day care and little miss here at home:

At day care the girls were playing house and giving each other fake names. Here was their convo:
girl #1 says to girl #2 - "Ok, you can be Lady Gaga"
girl #2 says - "No! I'm not Lady Gaga! I have clothes on!"
girl #1 says - "So..."
girl #2 says - "I don't wanna be Lady Gaga. She never has clothes on!"

Ha ha ha!! I laughed so hard when I heard that! 

One morning this week we were eating snack and one of the kids said, "Raise your hand if you have seen the movie DolphinTale!" Others raised their hands. Another child says, "Raise your hand if you've seen the movie Cinderella!" Others raised their hands. They went on like this for a while, several different childrens movies were named, and then one little boy says, "Raise your hand if you've seen Walking Dead!" And all the kids stare at him. He says, "What?!? It has zombies in it!!"

Ha ha ha! Maybe you had to be there for that one, but it was too cute!

Today I was putting YCDC on all the games in our room, and one of the boys asked me what I was doing. I said, "I am writing YCDC on these, so that people know they belong here." He said, "Oh! I like them!" I asked, "You like what?" He said, "ACDC! They rock!"

How do these kids know about this stuff!?!? Ha Ha! They crack me up!

Tonight Jared was putting Sophia's clothes away in her room while she was out in the kitchen with me. When he came out she said, "Doing, daddy?" He said, "I put your clothes away, but I left one of your drawers open." She looked at him and said, "My get it!" And then ran back to her room and closed the drawer. She has this thing about drawers being open. She absolutely hates it! Jared does it to bug her sometimes when she's getting ready for bed. Every time she says, "Uh oh!" And then closes it. She is funny.

Here are my favorite pictures from the day:

Grateful for potty training!

Today I am grateful for Sophia's teachers at day care. She is SO close to being potty trained, and they have been so helpful with encouraging her. Today she woke up and declared, "No diaper, mommy! Wear panties! No diaper no more!" So that's what we did, and she had no accidents today! Not sure if this is really going to be the last time we do diapers or not, but I am very ready for that day to come.

It was another long day for me. Not so much with work this time, but sometimes I feel like I live at our church. If I'm not there for work, I'm there for something church related like youth group or music practice. It just never ends. A few months ago we were on our way to church one Sunday morning and as the church building came into view Jared said, "Sophia, look out the window! Where are we?" And she yelled, "Mommy's house!!" Ha ha! It sure does feel like it sometimes! Tonight I was at the church late practicing for Winter Youth Retreat this weekend which is going to be fun! I am looking forward to our own youth group being there this time and I am also looking forward to just playing music and worshiping God the way I feel I do it best. God has definitely given me a love of music and singing, so how could I not love these weekends!

It's been another late night and if I don't get sleep now, I probably won't until next week. So I will leave you now with a little song from a favorite movie of mine...

Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go do do de do do
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go do do de do do
I hate to leave you but I really must say,
Goodnight sweetheart, Goodnight!!!

Looong day...

Yesterday I talked a little about the big mess I had left in my classroom after staying late at work trying to organize all the games and puzzles... boy was I mistaken!! That was nothing compared to today! So I went into work about an hour early this morning and almost all morning I worked on my piles of games and puzzles. The room was actually beginning to look somewhat back to normal (other than the fact that we still couldn't use our main two tables). Then we left the room for lunch. When we got back, there were two men in there from the church who were planning to build a large cabinet for my room. Which was requested a long time ago, we just never knew when it was going to happen. Well it happened. So I told them to wait until after nap and I would clean out the corner where the cabinet was going to go. Let me just tell you, this is a very large "corner" and it was very full of stuff. So instead of finishing my games project, during nap time my piles grew about 4x as big and when I left my classroom this afternoon you could barely walk in the door.

Now, I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining... because I'm not trying to. I am SUPER excited about this cabinet. It is huge. It has lots of big shelves. And it is organized (for the most part) after a few more hours there this evening. I have a picture to show of just how beautiful it is, but I want to put a disclaimer out there... the label maker was out of tape, so for now masking tape is doing the job, but it will look better when I can put nice labels on everything.

I wanted to show a before and after picture, but I forgot to take a before picture until about half the cabinet was full, and I didn't want to take everything out just for the sake of a picture, so just remember that this was built today and was completely empty. That's what the before would have looked like. :)

As you will notice I did not take a picture of the rest of the room because you can still barely walk in, but there are still three work days left this week, and I guarantee it will be done by then. (Actually it has to be done by tomorrow evening for church, so Amy, if you are reading this, I could use some help tomorrow! :)

Today I am very grateful for my new cabinet. It feels so good to finally know where all my supplies are! I am also grateful for something that happened last night right before bed. In about a month I will be doing special music at church, and I have been wanting to find a song, I just hadn't taken the time to do it yet. So I sat down last night and read over the Scripture for that Sunday and God made it so clear to me which song I need to do - "Grace and Love" by Kutless. I am so excited because it is one of my favorite songs, and I am just praying that I do it justice! I am so thankful for a God who at times speaks so clearly to us! (Sometimes I wish those times came more often, but I'll take whatever!!) If you want to check out a Youtube video of the song, just click here.

Good night all. It is well past my bedtime.

President's Day!

President's Day brought lots of different emotions for me! It started out pretty good, I actually showered AND ate breakfast before work this morning... I have to be honest, that hardly ever happens. It's usually one or the other. Then I got to work and realized that because it was President's Day, we had several school-aged kids that joined my class. Which at first I wasn't so thrilled about, but it turned out to be a really great thing! We ended up having a free-play day and I think my preschoolers really enjoyed playing with the big kids.

Because they did such a good job playing today, I had time to organize and clean in my room. This morning turned out to be very productive and I completely redid the art corner. I should have gotten a picture of the whole corner, but here is a picture of what I am most proud of from today.

Hopefully the kids keep it organized!! I found this idea on Pinterest and loved it.

My afternoon project is still in the works. I began organizing all of our puzzles and games that had been thrown into a large box and left for a few months. The pieces are all mixed together and half of them are lost, so I am in the process of figuring out what goes where and what complete games and puzzles we still have. I stayed late to work on it, but had to get home for Fia's bedtime, so the plan is to go in early tomorrow and try to finish it before the kids are ready for the day. I'm sure tomorrow will be at least a 2-cup coffee day!

So today I am grateful for the time and ability to work on my classroom. These kids deserve the best, and sometimes I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off just to get through the day, so I always appreciate time to work on the "extra" stuff.

MYF 50s dinner

Just a few pictures from the theme dinner Saturday night. It was a SWELL time!

 The girls "watching" a 50s show

 Our emcee and his helper

 Playing "Beat the Clock"

 Hula Hoop!

 The Hand Jive

 Elvis Presley even made an appearance!

Doesn't he look like he stepped right out of the 50s?! 

It was a great night and I was thoroughly blessed by all the youth who came and helped, and those from the church who came to have fun and support the MYF. Thanks to everyone who participated!!

Church

Well, I'm not sure how this whole blog this is going to go, but I'll give it a go. It's taken me almost a week to do the first one, but maybe once I get going it'll get easier.

So, today is Sunday and we had a great morning at church. It took me WAY too long to get out of bed this morning, but once I was up and around I felt much better. Who am I kidding, it takes me way too long to get out of bed every morning! :)

We had a great night at our MYF 50s theme dinner last night. Hopefully I can get some pictures from my grandpa soon to post. It seemed like he took a lot of pictures, so I'm sure he got some good ones. I can't wait to see how ridiculous we all looked! Ha!

I am very grateful today for our church. I was reminded yesterday and today of how much love and support there is in that community. A lady came up to Jared and I at church today and told us how much she enjoyed the theme dinner last night. She said, "I think we as Christians need to encourage others in what they are doing and show our appreciation for their efforts whenever possible." I was very touched and challenged  by that. How often do I notice a kind gesture or appreciate someones work yet don't tell them?

That will be a goal of mine this week: acknowledging those around me, and showing my appreciation.

Have a great Sunday, all!!

First try!

Well, here goes nothing! I decided today that I wanted to start a blog. I'm not sure yet how this is going to go, and I'm REALLY not sure about the name I gave it, but I decided I'm going to try it. I have found a few "challenges" on Pinterest to give me something to write about (other than Sophia of course). 

365 days of gratitude





and a 31 day photo challenge or this 30 day photo challenge.

We will see how this goes... wish me luck!! :)