thankful hearts

Zach and I (seperately) read something on a friends blog and both really liked it! He happened to ask me if I'd read it and when I said YES! we got to have a good talk about our own parenting goals. This is from our friend Mary...

When your chickens are small, your concerns are not as deep.

Did they eat well?

Do they have on enough sunscreen?

Are they watching too much Disney Channel?

You know. It's a little bit simpler. They don't talk back (that much) and you are a stickler with 'first time obedience'.As they grow and mature, they begin to develop their own thoughts and feelings and you cheer them on as you watch them lay the foundation to independence. It's supposed to be a good thing. Only problem is that before long, a little thing called entitlement sets in like an ugly rash.That has happened around here in the last few months but it's probably been building for quite some time. (Unlike my childhood where any extra thing could brighten my week and make me grateful. For example, a trip to the pool, a rare outing to eat at McDonald's, an even more rare trip to Six Flags or a sleepover with my cousins.) I never expected any of these things and I guess that's the biggest difference.In our attempt to provide an abundant, full childhood for our girls, I'm afraid we have spoiled them and that certainly was NOT the goal. They expect to have sleepovers with their peeps on a regular basis (even when they haven't been invited). They expect to eat out at their whim. They expect to be able to decide what toppings we order on our pizza. I want to do nice things for them because I love them, not because they're going to flip out when we can't for some reason or even worse, we can and they fully expect that we will, without any gratitude.

While some of this we haven't had to deal with yet due to Micah and Connor's young age I did think through to see if we were on the same trend. The one thing I desire to make sure we do our best as parents to accomplish is teaching our children thankfulness (in ALL things). Expectations are great and the ones I have for my kids are high, but they are based on a deep love for them and a desire for them to be great citizens in the Kingdom of God which will enable them to be great citizens on Earth. My parenting quite often does not sow the seeds needed to reap that! We are forming our thoughts, actions, prayers to show them how to enjoy and be thankful for all we have and/or don't have and to be happy in HIM alone. It's a tall order so I'm glad I don't have to do it on my own but through He who created us all!

In everything give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus

1 Thessalonians 5:18

mimi and papas

While Zach and I were gone the boys stayed at my parents house. I drove down Monday and stayed for a few days as well. Everyone was still in school so I didn't get to see my siblings a ton but I did get to hang out with my brother's girlfriend, visit my older brother in his class, eat lunch with my older sister and have lots of hangout time with my mom, dad and nieces. I even got lunch out with two of my best since childhood friends. Here's a couple of pictures from our week.

nyc: day 3

Our last day turned into a good part/bad part day. I'll lead with the good :)

One thing I wanted to do while we were there was find some antique/flea markets. There are a couple there every weekend so first thing we did was track them down. The first one was called "The Garage" because it was located in two levels of an old parking garage. There were tons of booths! AWESOME!! I was surprised at the amount of vintage jewelry and clothing. Here in the south we like our home decor but apparently Yankees look for another breed of stuff! We walked around and saw lots of cool things but a lot was over priced, another northern thing apparently! We ended up leaving with two billiard balls, a (fake) gold bracelet with a cool patina, and a stack of old college stickers (circa 70s-80s). Next we found a street flea market where Zach bought an old New York license plate and I got a piece of white milk glass. I left very happy :)

The one I bought in NYC is the taller pedestal in the back. Just in case you want to know the front creamer came from Savannah and the bowl was a surprise from Steph on her trip to Lousiana.

(btw I LOVE milk glass and white dishes of ANY kind. It's always what I look for first at antique/flea/thrift places)

Next, we walked to (somewhere) and found the flatiron building which none of you might know by the name but everyone will know by the picture. We couldn't decide what to do next so we sat for awhile and thought. We had 3 hours left, it was super windy and the sky was getting a bit dark so my vote was going to the MET. I love museums, especially when they have works that I've actually heard of, and I didn't want to get rained on. Zach had talked before we came about wanting to go to Brooklyn to get a picture of the bridge and eat at some pizza place. In the end I

knew he'd be more upset about missing out on a photo op than I would be the museum so we decided on plan b. However, this was the beginning of bad part day.

When I say bad I don't mean something horrible happened, I just mean things didn't quite work out like we'd planned. First of all my feet were swollen from our trek the day before and I made a poor shoe choice sunday so my feet were killing me and I had two monster blisters and we couldn't find an open pharmacy. We had to take a couple trains to get to Brooklyn, got off and then couldn't find the way to get across the highway to the bridge. Once we got there the majority of it was covered in scaffolding so Zach didn't get the exact pics he wanted. The pizza place had a line about 30 ppl long and I'm pretty sure if we had waited in it we would have missed our flight! We made it back to Manhattan with two ridiculously expensive subway bandaids and starving because we STILL hadn't eaten lunch. We found a deli ate yummy sandwiches in a random park near Queensboro bridge and rode a cab back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the airport. WHEW! It didn't by any means 'ruin' our trip, it just gave us a funny story to mix in with all the great ones :)

I really enjoyed our trip, really enjoyed being with just Zach for longer than the time between the boys bed time and ours, and really enjoyed being forced out of my comfort zone to see other people in theirs. Fun times!

nyc: day 2

warning: day 2 was long long long so if you need to take a break while reading this I understand :)

We started off Saturday morning at Grand Central Station to catch a train to Battery Park. It is one beautiful building.

We walked around Battery Park for awhile and saw the Statue of Liberty from afar. You can't go on the island right now so paying to take a boat to just get a little closer seemed like not the best financial investment.

We walked up to Wall Street to walk around and went in Trinity Church. It's a gorgeous church that was also the scene for the end of National Treasure. We visited the Ground Zero and saw the new trade center being built. It will be HUGE! It's also covered with mirrored glass to reflect everything around it. They have also started on a very large museum and memorial for 9/11. I can't believe the 10th anniversary is this year!

Next we headed to Chinatown. No purse buying for me but we had fun walking in some of the shots. We bought Micah and Connor toy taxi cabs for a surprise. A few weeks ago I was watching The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network and Guy Fieri was talking about a noodle shop in Chinatown. We were meeting Zach's aunt and uncle for lunch but I figured a little snack wouldn't hurt :) They were some yummy noodles!

Little Italy is pretty much right next door so we walked through on the way to the subway and happened to run into Chip Carey (Braves announcer). Zach was super excited!

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and eating and walking and eating. Seriously! We met Zach's aunt and uncle at Gray's Papaya hot dogs in the upper west side and continued on a walking eating tour. We hit a lot of the spots from the movie You've Got Mail (one of my absolute favs!) and then finally rested in Central Park before heading back to the hotel.

This is from the beginning of the movie when Tom Hanks is walking down one side and Meg Ryan down the other.

Gray's Papaya. Super yummy hot dog and also the meeting place before she found out he was her online love :)

Cafe Lola. Where Tom Hanks finds out who she really is and is mean!

Zabars. Super awesome store with fun yummy food. Scene: Thanksgiving, Cash Only Line

Bagel place where the flour looks like mist

After our 'tour' we sat and stared at the lake in Central Park. It was gorgeous. You can tell this is a much needed part of NYC. The atmosphere is just so much more relaxed as soon as you see the green.

After taking a taxi to our hotel (my first ride ever) we got ready for our anniversary dinner. We were eating a little Italian place in Greenwich village. First stop was Washington Square where we walked around and saw the cutest little old couple shuffling together down the side walk! We stopped in a few shops, had a long chat with a guy who worked in one of them about Provence and Paris (random to me but not if you know zach) and then headed to the restaurant. The food was delicious, the place was quiet and on the way out we ended up having a 20 minute conversation with the owner, Monte, a big giant Italian man, who told us all about his children, childhood home and asked a ton of questions to us.


We got one shot of us in the lobby of the hotel while we looked pretty and then CRASHED in bed. My feet were so tired and swollen!!