our vegas trip

Ok, so the previous post is not true :) I don't think I fooled anybody, either!

Last weekend, we spent 4 days in Las Vegas. Mom and Dad Barkel took Jordan and I and Jeremy and Jess, Jordan's sister and brother-in-law (Jordan's other sister couldn't make it). This was actually Jordan's and my 2nd time going, the first being 5 years ago, and it was just as fun. There is just so much to see and do. We stayed at the Bally's Resort. It was right in the middle of the strip. It was really great hotel! We had a good time just laying out by the pool, walking up and down the strip, and gambling (of course). We gambled a lot (time-wise) and had a lot of fun doing it and when we finally called it quits, we came out $10 ahead. Whoopee! We discovered a place with $1 Margaritas, really good food, and cheap beer, called 'Bill's' and it kind of became our hangout place. We had such a great time!

It was the perfect amount of time away from our girls. Our friends, Aaron and Heidi and Katie and Matt, my sister and brother-in-law, took good care of them. Aaron told us that Natalie crawled into bed with them one night and asked him a couple of times, "daddy?" and Aaron would correct her and say, "no, Aaron." But now, we've had it a couple of times where she'll point at a male stranger and say "my daddy?" and she's been calling her own daddy "Jordan"..... I'm thinking there's more to the story that Aaron told us about her asking if he was her daddy! What did he tell her? :) Natalie has been talking about Aaron and Heidi and Matt and Katie everyday since we've been home. I don't think our girls missed us at all!

Here are some pics of the weekend:

Thanks, mom and dad, for another great and memorable family vacation!!

LOOK WHAT WE WON IN VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

summer '09

Where did the summer go?!! I thought this was an awesome summer; I loved the comfortable weather! Today, Jordan and I took a bike ride with the girls from Beechwood Reformed to the beach. The weather was amazing and the girls did really great. We pull them in a burley behind us. I think this has been the first bike ride that neither of them got bitten by the other and there was no fighting! I'm so regretful for not doing more things like that this summer. We made ourselves way too busy this summer. But it was still a great summer.

Ruby is 10 months old now! She can say a few words and she's still as happy as can be. She loves dancing and music! She can't not dance when someone sings or when music plays. When I sit her by the piano, she just pounds away... she's going to be a pianist, I just know it! She still has quite the appetite as well (like her mother!). She enjoyed her first of corn-on-the-cob the other night - so funny. I just can't believe how fast time has gone with her.

While Ruby is our overly happy and content sweetheart, Natalie is bi-polar! No, I'm just kidding, I hope!! But she does have many different personalities ;) Sometimes, she is just soo sweet, caring, and playful and literally the next minute, she's rolling on the ground throwing a fit. AGH! This parenting stuff is getting tricky! Ruby goes to sleep earlier than Natalie, so when we bring Natalie into the room sometimes Ruby wakes up and starts crying. And then Natalie yells, "Ruby, STOP CRYING!" And things go downhill from there and we've got two screaming children probably waking up the neighborhood since their windows are usually open. But what a fun age at the same time. She's talking constantly and some of the things she says are so funny. And hearing 'I wuv you' never gets old (especially when I'm so sure throughout the day that she doesn't exactly like me).

Check out some of our pictures of the girls over this summer:

At the beach with my sister, Katie and all of the kids!

Natalie and Briella put lotion on each other :)

I feel like I could write a lot more on this post, but I am very sleepy from the summer sun and the girls are asleep, too.... I feel a nap coming on :)

story of my life....

Just watch (pause the music at the bottom of this page first):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU66Tlp-vpI

Multiply that by two.

Enough said.

getting my priorities straight

This afternoon, I was sitting in the sun. I have not done that hardly at all this summer because I've been too busy working on the house, or mowing, or blogging :).... While sitting outside, I began to think about God's marvelous creation. I've been so busy with ME, the girls, and Jordan (and probably in that order, too) that I haven't left (or made) time to be with God.

I think God has been trying to reveal it to me that I need to make Him number 1. Our sermon on Sunday really spoke to my heart. It was about partaking of all that God has to offer us when we actually have a relationship with Him. There's so much more to this life if we just give God the reigns. And last week, Jordan showed me a youtube video that shows a black speck in space actually being another universe. God is AMAZING!! We humans have not even begun to see the vastness of this creation. We are less than miniscule beings on this earth and in this life and yet God considers us His greatest creation! He knows the number of hairs on our heads! How can that be? And Jesus gave himself up for us? How humbling.

We were made to praise Him but He has not been the priority in my life, lately. This creation is so gigantic and God is even bigger and yet I put Him in a box and take Him out when I need Him or when I have the time for Him. And I praise Him often for our health, our girls, our marrige, family and friends, and even for blessing us financially. But sometimes the devil gets in my head and I subconciously believe that we deserve all these blessings, that we don't need God.... UGH! When I consider God's creation, and then look into my heart and see that it is black with sin and that what I'm deserving of is hell, then I can't believe that God chooses to love me still. I love this phrase from the song 'Here I Am to Worship': I'll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon that cross. That's so true - we have no idea....

God created us to praise Him and we are to make Him priority number one. I have been so selfish this summer, always working on the house, or running errands. or dot, dot, dot and those things have to be done but it's September and I just finally 'smelled the roses' (literally, too!). It's time for me to praise God first and let everything fall into place after that.

If you want to see the video I'm referring to that Jordan showed me, click here. It's pretty cool!

beach day

Jordan had last Thursday off so we headed to the beach for the first time this year. So it was also Ruby's first beach experience. We had so much fun. We all lounged on the water's edge. The water was perfect and it was a gorgeous, sunny, not-too-hot day.

Ruby was a little unsure at first but got used to the water real fast. Ruby is just about 10 months old already which is exciting and sad to me. She is so fun. She says mama, dada, and bah (which sometimes means 'bye'). She crawls so fast all over. And she's still super smiley and very happy. This past week, she became very clingy to me and she always wants me to hold her. Sometimes, it gets old because I already have my hands full but most of the time, I love it. She can sort of give hugs and I just love that she loves me so much :)

Natalie is talking all the time. Everyday she shocks me with some new sentence. She is a little defiant these days, too. She just has such a hot temper when she doesn't get her way or when something goes wrong. She recieves a daily spankin', that's a given. But now she always teases us and says, 'I'll spank your butt'. There was a while there where she was really being naughty all the time but it's definately getting better already.

I could definately use some more beach days but I think it'd be a little too much work for me to go by myself. Hopefully Jordan will have some more days off so we can go :) Check out my beach babes!



I hate to brag but is that not the cutest bikini babe, ever? Look at that pose!!

This is quite the pose, too!

another little project... :)

Jordan and I have a house project going on (again!) which I will show you pictures of soon... hopefully. Whenever we start one project, our heads get full of a million other little ideas for things we should do. One of them that I've wanted to do for a while now is paint our garage door black. When we refinished our basement, we did the doors black and I absolutely love it. (We just love black as it is). Recently I've seen a couple of bloggers who have also painted their garage doors black and I decided to do it yesterday. So here's the finished product of the door leading into our house from the garage.

I got the idea to put our house number on the door from a fellow blogger doing it. Theirs was neater and I just free-handed this but I'm still happy with the improvement. I also painted the inside of the door and distressed it and I'm happy with how that turned out as well. I've had a lot of energy this week so I've been trying to put that energy to good use with getting lots of odd projects done like touch-ups everywhere. Isn't it a good feeling to just get so many of those annoying projects over with?!

~Update on my dieting.... the week of Chicago, I didn't do the weight watchers thing (probably the reason I didn't update you earlier!) but I did exercise. This week, I'm back on the diet, I feel great, and I've been exercising!! I haven't noticed a change in my shape yet and I've only get 4 more weeks til Vegas so hopefully I will see some results by then. Wish me luck :)