“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing into the division of my soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

That is truly powerful. Especially as I am working through the Bible study; “Me, Myself and Lies”. Comparing my thought closet to the thought closet God has for me and each of His children.

If you are one of the lucky ones, I am sure you delight in an occasional nap.  However, if you are me, you can only be envious of those who get such a luxury. When I quit my day job for my career of a lifetime, I thought I had traded in coffee breaks for peaceful naps with my children. Well, I soon realized that every UPS or Fed-ex delivery person was against me, every solicitor or neighborhood dog would conspire to rob me of this well earned break I had so desperately wanted.  For years now, 9 to be exact, just as I  start to doze, the doorbell would ring, or the dog would hear something and bark, the phone would ring. This was not just a fleeting curse that eventually went away. No, in fact I think the conspiracy has grown to include my own children. As recent as today, Kip and I decided that we had been working so hard that we could sneak in a 30 minute nap. The kids were playing nicely and would be fine for 30 minutes. Literally just as I drifted off into a nice, peaceful slumber, I am jolted awake by the sound of my daughter’s cry. I woke up disoriented (after only 3 minutes of sleep) thinking my child was injured, only to find she was fine, but throwing a little tantrum. I do have to laugh at this strange anomaly and wonder 1.  why do I continue to try to take naps.  2. Will I ever really get to truly experience a nap.

3:33

For years now, probably since about 2001 or late 2000 ~ about the time I got pregnant.  I have been waking up at 3:33 am or I will check the time in the afternoon’s and it is 3:33.  I occasionally see that number on other things as well.  I have always been curious as to what the significance is to this strange occurrence so I looked it up and found that lots of people have this same things happen.  There are actually lots and lots of theories some good and some bad.  I choose to believe it is something good.  In fact, here is one that I found rather intriguing from a dream expert.  “3 represents power. 33 is the number of Christ as a spiritual master or Christ consciousness.   Therefore, the message would be “The Power of Christ”.  Other interesting ones are relating to the Trinity or that Jesus lived on Earth for 33 years.  This will be one of the questions I will ask God when I make it to heaven.  But, in the meantime if you want to check out all of the theories out there, you should Google it!

First Day of School August 2010

Today marks the day that both of my babies leave our nest for seven-plus hours. Does not even seem possible!! As sad as it is for mommies, it is sure a blessing when the kids are excited to go to school full-time.

Today my Gillian woke up super duper early-for her. She went to bed last night afraid she would over sleep and reminded us that since she does not have an alarm clock that we needed to wake her up.  At 6:00 AM she skipped to our room and said, “mom,dad….I woke up early on my own!!!……is it time to go to school yet?”

She is in great hands.  I am absolutely thrilled with the teachers that they both got for this academic school year.  In just a little over an hour I get to pick them up and hear all the chatter about their day. LOVE that!

Dear God, can you please not let these next few years fly by too fast……please? ~amen.

Gillian & Mrs. Bull

Hayden & Mrs. Stephens

]]> http://www.csrussells.com/2010/08/19/huge-milestone-for-the-russell-family/feed 3 http://www.csrussells.com/2010/08/18/summer-drink-of-choice#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=summer-drink-of-choice http://www.csrussells.com/2010/08/18/summer-drink-of-choice#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:56:50 +0000 Kimberly http://www.csrussells.com/?p=939 This Summer I found a very tasty drink at Starbucks that quenched my thirst on these HOT days.

It is Green Tea Lemonade, oh so yummy. I have to admit that I have become very addicted to it the last few days while I have been working really hard on the house renovations.  Awwwww…so refreshing!

You gotta try it!

Up until this year, that was pretty much what my children experienced as well. However, this year I found out that our kids have their daddy’s gene’s where their teeth are concerned.

Upon finding out both kids have several cavities that they each needed to have filled, we also learned that our “new dentist” that we just found and liked didn’t take our “new insurance”. While I was trying to find another good family dentist (why does it take so long to find good, reputable health care?) who accepted our insurance my sweet Gillian had one of her bad teeth abscess. What was urgent now became critical at a time when I was unable to help her.   With the help of many friends and my wonderful and amazing husband, we found a dentist that is near our home and takes our insurance.  Kip was able to get her in right away and get her taken care of, while I was near my mom who was in the hospital.  I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband.  They did end up pulling her tooth and having to put a spacer in.  Which for me because I was not with her was so traumatic, but I hear that she was extraordinarily brave.  I was afraid she would fight to go to the dentist and be afraid of them but Praise be to God, she is not!

My hope is to finish our travel log from our First Family Vacation in addition to updates on our home improvement projects.  I also need to journal about Hayden and Gillian’s activities….goodness!!!  I cannot believe that my kids will actually be in school two weeks from today!!!!!  Summer goes by so fast and since having children I really mourn the end of Summer.   We have not even been “camping” yet this Summer…..it CANNOT be over yet!!!!    Cheers to Summer 2010!

Today also meant a lot to me to have three generations together enjoying a fun outing and girls afternoon out.   Mom and Gillian had the most drastic change and I have to say they look FABULOUS!!!  Mom looks younger and Gillian looks precious with her sassy curls.   Mine would be noticeable if I had been wearing my hair down more often, it was really very long and thick and now feels like it has life to it again.

Three Generations

As many of you know (because you are so graciously covering us in prayers) Mom goes in for her second surgery on Monday, July 19th.  I know she is as calm as can be expected – Praising God,  but I on the other hand am not.  Goodness,  she is in great hands, the loving and healing hands of our Father, what more could I ask?   Please pray for the procedure to be successful, for the doctor to be “ON HIS GAME 100%” and for healing.  I pray that after Monday, that we will be able to REJOICE and put this all behind us.

God Bless You Mommy, you look  beautiful!

Dear God, Thank you for entrusting your daughter, Gillian to us. Please continue to bless her, guide her and protect her.  In Jesus name, we pray.

We love you sweet girl and we are so very proud of you! ~  Love,  Mom and Dad

Toothless Birthday Girl

After much wishing, dreaming and praying, her tooth was finally ready to come out and I actually was the one to pull it out! Yay Mom!! 

The sad thing is that I don’t really get a toothless beauty because her new tooth has pretty much already emerged, although not right where it should be but two of them are already out.  I am so happy for you sweet girl and this all happened just a day before she turned seven!  So much excitement this week!!  Gillian even wrote a note to The Tooth Fairy and asked if she could pretty please keep her tooth and the Tooth Fairy obliged.  Go figure!

]]> http://www.csrussells.com/2010/07/09/we-interrupt-the-vacation-segment-for-breaking-news/feed 1 http://www.csrussells.com/2010/06/28/a-very-important-date#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-very-important-date http://www.csrussells.com/2010/06/28/a-very-important-date#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:31:31 +0000 Kimberly http://www.csrussells.com/?p=910

After we were sufficiently heated up from the warm temperatures at the Grand Canyon, we gassed up and had a quick bite to eat before we headed back on the road.  Our next big trek was to be this one, Arizona to California.   The only place we had a specific date we had to be there was our hotel reservations for Disneyland.

During our long hauls, the kids were really very good.  Hayden figured out if he slept, it made the time go by faster, consequently he took a few good naps.  When he wasn’t sleeping, he’d be playing games on his Ipod touch or Hang Man with anyone who would play.

Specifically for this trip I put together an activity box for each of the kids.  I included their gaming systems, puzzle books, snacks, paper and markers.  I also included a new travel journal for each of them and brought adhesive so that they could put postcards from each place they visited into their scrapbook.  This was a fun project for us to work on also, while we were traveling.  Both kids did a great job on them and just have a few finishing touches to add now that we are home.  The idea is for them to add to it whenever we travel.

We got into Anaheim pretty late that night.  Lemme just tell you, “it ain’t no fun, driving a big RV down the California highways!”   SERIOUSLY   I was terrified and I felt for my poor dad.  These crazy people would get so impatient that we were going the speed limit that they would speed past us ON THE SHOULDER!!!  I was so happy when we found a place to call home for that night.  We found a lovely RV park not too far from Disney and as we parked in our spot, we were greeted with the amazing firework show that Disney shoots off every night.   I cannot tell you or begin to explain the magic and awe of that moment.  The kids, my mom and sister and I just sat and watched, it was a very memorable moment.   What a great way to end the long trip of that day and stir up the excitement for the next day’s event.

With the wonder of Disney dancing in H & G’s head, I was surprised that they could actually fall asleep once we got our beds made.   It was a blessing that we could all fall asleep so easily that night.  The next day, we showered, had breakfast and drove to our hotel.  We were not able to check in right away, but our biggest concern was finding a place to park the house on wheels.  We were going to have to find 6-9 free spaces to the back of the property to park the rig in.  We circled the property two to three times, with no luck.  We all began to hedge our guess as to how many times we would have to circle before we found a spot.  Hayden, the optimist guessed the closest.   It was truly a God thing, we saw an area that would work but there was ONE car parked right in the middle of several empty spots, “If only that car would leave soon, or we knew who owned that car” Our third time driving around and out of several hundred guests, we spot the owner of the car. My dad got out and chatted with the guy and asked if he would be willing to move to another spot,  and God Bless that man, he did.

We were able to pick up our Disney packages and plan out our first day at the park.   Dad spoiled us and reserved a nice Penthouse room for all of us as part of our package.  The grounds were so pretty, I love the plants and foliage in California.

In the Lobby

Dad & Mom

One very excited little girl

A beautiful flower at our hotel