Showing God's Love

One of the great things about my job is that I love what I do and I get to see my boys all the time. When one gets hurt or gets sick they only have to come to my classroom instead of wait in the office while I drive to school. Also, I get to see all of their accomplishments first hand.
Every Friday our school has chapel. One of the classes does a chapel presentation or we have a guest speaker. During chapel time teachers can give out two awards. One is called a ROAR Award. ROAR stands for Respect, Obedience, Attitude and Responsibility. The second award is called a Showing God's Love Award. This award is given to students who demonstrate God's love to others.
Today, Seth earned a Showing God's Love Award. His teacher gave it to him because he took someone else's feelings into consideration and put her wants before his. His class was choosing animals to do a research project on and he chose a lion. When he made his choice another student was upset because she had her heart set on researching lions. When he saw her upset he told her that she could choose lions and he would research the black bear.
I'm so proud of my son. My desire for all three of my boys is that they will grow to be men of God. For them to have Godly character is very important so watching him get a Showing God's Love Award was fabulous for this mom!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

After watching my husband lose over 50 pounds and growing tired of being unhappy with my body I decided to make a change. My sister-in-law was kind enough to partner up with me on this journey so that I didn't have to walk this road alone. We began at the end of February. We started watching what we ate and learned to make better choices and become more conscious about the food we put into our mouths. We also started exercising on a regular basis. With 4 kids between us we usually just work out at home.
After 2 1/2 months I have lost 13 pounds. It has been quite a discouraging journey for me. Every week when I weigh in and see that I've only lost 1 pound or that I haven't lost any I get frustrated. I second guess everything I've done and I've even felt like giving up. It's rather difficult to lose 1 pound a week when my husband lost 12 pounds his first week of weight loss and kept up the big numbers by losing over 50 pounds in just 90 days.
However, relief and encouragement came to me this weekend! Ron and I are going to Las Vegas on Thursday and we went shopping to pick up a new outfit. I picked up a couple of dresses and trudged off into the dressing room. When I tried on the first dress it was too big. I thought there must be some joke. Maybe it's the style of dress or something. I tried on the second dress and it was also too big. I went back and picked up a smaller size in both dresses and they both fit! I was so excited that I couldn't wait to get out of the dressing room to go tell Ron.
Since my dressing room experience went so well I pulled out a couple of things from my closet that I used to wear but were now just a bit too tight to wear and was given another boost of confidence. They now fit better and I was able to wear a shirt to work today that I haven't worn in awhile.
I am not finished with this weight loss journey. In fact, I'm pretty sure that this will be a life long journey for me. I have about 23 more pounds to reach a healthy weight and be officially out of the overweight category. However, I will no longer allow myself to look at my progress and compare to someone else. For me it seems that slow and steady wins the race and so I keep my eyes toward my goal and I press on while I enjoy the small victories.

How Do You Know When You Have a Larger Than Average Family?

Every Saturday I go to Albertson's for my weekly grocery shopping trip. I usually spend Friday night planning the family menu for the week, making my grocery list and pulling out coupons from my coupon binder. This weekend was no different.
Saturday I leave Evan with Ron and take Seth and Levi to the grocery store. After two trips to the bathroom(both taken by Seth) we managed to get everything we needed and headed home.
Sunday night arrives and since it's Ron's week to make lunches and my week to make sure the boys get a bath we head off to do our parental duties. I've got Evan in the bathtub and while I'm trying to convince him for the thousandth time that I will not drown him while trying to rinse the soap from his hair I hear Ron saying something to me. After I get Evan out of the bath Ron says again, "Did you know we go through 10 slices of bread a day?" Uh....I've never really thought about it but 5 people times 2 slices of bread per sandwich...yep...10 slices per day. Half of our loaf of bread is gone in one lunch! He says, "Maybe we need to start buying two or three loaves of bread a week." And that's how you know you have a larger than average family!

Demolition & Renovations

When I was 12 years old my parents bought a house. I lived in that house until I married my wonderful husband at age 22. In 2004, when my parents moved to Texas, my family moved in. At the time we had just found out that I was pregnant with baby #2 and Seth had just turned 1.
One of the benefits of renting the house from my parents is that we get to paint and remodel rooms! With a carpenter for a husband....this is wonderful!
Our most recent endeavor is our bathroom. A few years ago my husband put this lovely blue tile in our bathroom floor. Unfortunately with potty training 3 boys this poor tile didn't stand a chance of survival. So, we decided it was time to fix it.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of getting rid of the tile on the bathroom floor and this weekend we installed the new tile. It's been a timely project (we're still waiting to grout it tonight) but it's been an interesting experience. I've learned how to use a tile saw and how to grout tile. Both of these were good experiences.
Once the renovation is complete I'll be posting pictures....
Goodbye blue tile. Thank you for your years of service!

60th Wedding Anniversary

In June our family is taking a trip to Texas. We're going to pack up our car with our 3 kids and drive from CA to TX. I'm sure it sounds crazy to most but it will be well worth it. You see, my grandparents will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary with a big anniversary party. All of my family on my dad's side will be making the trip. It is rare that we are all together at once. In fact it hasn't happened in a long time. Most of us got together a few years ago for my cousin's wedding but there were still a few of us missing.

My grandparents have 4 children and they are all married. There are 7 grandchildren of which 3 of us are married and 1 is engaged. There are also 8 great-grandchildren. That's a total of 29 of us. My grandparents and my parents live in Texas and the rest of us live in various parts of California and 1 in Washington.

Some of my fondest memories as a kid were spending time at my grandparent's house (back when they lived here in CA) or hanging out with my aunts and my cousins. I can't wait to spend time with them and have them spend time with my kids. I'm excited for my kids to make memories of their own while they get to hang out with their great-grandparents, their grandparents, their great-aunts and uncles, their uncle and aunt, and their cousins.

One of my goals while we're there is to make sure we get a good picture of all of us. I don't know how we're going to get a good picture of 29 people or how long it's going to take but I'm hoping we can do it. What a treasure that picture will be!

About 1 month after my grandparents celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary my husband and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. I wonder what our 60th wedding anniversary will look like?

Zac Brown at Church

Today we visited the church of some friends of ours. At this church the elementary school kids stay in the service with their parents for the first few worship songs. Seth was sitting next to me and he leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Mom, that guy in the band looks like Zac Brown." And you know what....he was right! Little things like that make me smile!

It's a New Year!

We rang in the New Year last night in true Perry style. We went to Grandma's house for a little while and then came home and made dinner. After dinner we played Toy Story Uno. Everyone pitched in $1 and the winner of the games got to take the money. Strangely enough Seth and Evan won all of the games. I sent Ron a text half way through the game and asked, "Is it still wrong to cheat if you're cheating so that your kids will win the game?" We then watched Dick Clark's countdown on TV. Seth fell asleep but Evan and Levi had no problems staying awake. Evan and Levi are more like their dad but Seth takes after me. I was ready to go to bed at 11:30pm but made myself stay up until midnight.

2010 is gone and the kids are growing quickly. God has a plan for our family in 2011 and I am excited to see how that plan unfolds! Happy New Year to all of our friends and family!