feb week 3

well, saturday afternoon didn't go quite as well as planned. rather than taking a really long nap, boden refused to nap AT ALL. he layed in his crib for 1.5 hrs whining, talking, crying, talking, playing...everything but sleeping. when i finally gave in and got him up i said "don't you want to go to sleep?" and he said "NO, NO!" it was hard not to laugh. lately he says 'no' to everything - especially sleep! he had a rough night sat night - he woke up for about 2.5 hours in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep until michael finally went and slept on his floor. we thought he would be so exhausted that he would take a good nap sunday afternoon - WE were exhausted! but, again, he refused to nap! little stinker. thank God he is napping today - and i finished last week's layout!

we had a fun week - my dad came to visit tues night - wed. he had a business meeting in st louis and was able to come down the night before and spend some time with us, then he got to play with boden all morning before his meeting, and finally, have dinner with us before he headed home. unfortunately his flight got delayed going home and he had to spend an extra 2.5hrs at the airport :( yuck. but we had fun while he was here and i think boden really loved the surprise of poppa being there when he woke up on wed. morning. on friday we went and met Jackson Hall for the first time - Vinny and Jamie's new little boy. he's adorable - with tons of hair! and then of course the little gym & my "me" time at panera that i mentioned previously. God must have known i was going to need that re-charge on sat. because the no-napping-whiny toddler really pushed my patience (and sanity) on sat afternoon!

here's my 365 layout from this past week - I'm all caught up! :






*layout using Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff - http://www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com/

*click on the images to see them bigger & read the journaling

Feb 8-14

another week with the brueseke family - i know you're dying to know what we've been up to ;)

i'm actually almost completely caught up with my project 365 scrapbook - which is absolutely amazing for me! this morning my lovely husband dropped me off at panera so i could spend a couple hours reading, scrapbooking, and sipping tea while he and boden run some errands together. for a stay at home mom this is just about the best gift i could ask for. (time at home alone is great, but i always feel like i should be cleaning something so its not as relaxing as it should be)

earlier this morning we went to the the little gym with our friends brian & jessica and their little boy, isaac. it was "bring a friend day" so they invited us. it was lots of fun - boden loved it. i wanted to take lots of pictures, but i didn't want to be so focused on photos that i didn't enjoy playing with boden, so i left my camera in the bag. :( the kids sang, played on the little balance beam, hung on the bars, jumped on the blow up bouncy thing, rolled around, played with bubbles, balls, and a bunch of other things. boden ran around like a little wild man. michael even took the morning off from studying so he could join in the fun.

maybe boden will be so worn out that he takes a really long nap and i'll get this past week scrapped and posted (and do the laundry, take a shower, and clean the house of course)....maybe. until then, here's what we did last week:




*click on the image to see itbigger & read the journaling

*layout using Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff - http://www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com/

Project 365 - Jan week 4

i'm almost completely caught up! Here's January Week 4:



*click on the image to see it bigger & read the journaling



*layout using Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff - http://www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com/

project 365 - catching up

january - week 2

*layout using Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff - www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com

*click on the images to read journaling

project 365 - catching up

january 2009 - week 1



*layout using Life 365 by Gina Marie Huff - www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com
*click on the image to read journaling

project 365, feb week 1

at the beginning of 2009 i started project 365 - an attempt to take at least one photo each day to capture the "everyday moments" instead of just the big holidays and events. One of the designers at weeds and wildflowers designed a "Life 365" kit to help scrap the everyday photos. it's the first digital scrapbooking kit i've purchased and i love it! (i usually use free stuff that i find here). it has templates and all the pieces fit together like a puzzle so you don't have to spend a lot of time scrapbooking and it's easy to keep up to date. they even started a contest to encourage people to keep up to date on their pages - if you are using the project 365 kit and you post your layout from the previous week - you get a free add on that goes with the kit - fun!

since i didn't have a computer for most of january i'm a little behind on my january layouts, but here is my layout from the first week of february:

*if you click on the image it will open it in a bigger window so you can read the journaling

new beginnings

For those of you who don't know already, Michael and I are part of the pastoral staff of the new Destiny Church campus in O'Fallon, MO - and we are so excited! We have already grown to more than double our size since launching last month - we had just under 100 adults and children worshiping at the O'Fallon campus on Sunday!

Here are some photos from this past weekend - it was our first time holding the service in the gym and we moved the nursery & preschool into the cafeteria. We are meeting at an elementary school, so everything has to be set up before service, then taken down after and stored until the next week - so it requires some creativity in what equipment to use - and some amazing volunteers who show up early and stay late to get everything set up and torn down.

The lovely Laura in our nursery/preschool before the kids arrived


Fast Track - K-5th grade

Worship

The worship team

Pastor Mark sharing the message

We are so excited to be part of what God is doing through Destiny Church in O'Fallon! If you live in the O'Fallon/ St Charles County area and are looking for a church, or know someone who is - come visit us! You can find out more and get directions at the Destiny Church website.

girls night out

friday night i got the chance to spend the evening with some of my favorite ladies in the whole world. sara, nicki, and alicia were my bridesmaids (other than my sisters) and my best friends from college. we all have very busy lives now and even though we all live in the st louis area, we rarely are able to get together all at the same time...in fact, it had been 3 years since we all sat around the same table together! you would never have known it by the way we carried on all evening long. we eventually ended up adding more tip to our checks because we occupied our table at the restaurant for 4 hours - poor server probably wondered if we would ever leave -and i'm sure we could have gone on for hours longer had time allowed.

thanks for a wonderful evening ladies! i love you all very much and lets not wait 3 years before we do it again!

boden's surgery

thank you everyone who was praying for us on wednesday. i have never felt the peace of God so much in any one situation like i did wednesday. i thought for sure i would get all worked up and be crying and worrying - but not so at all. when wednesday rolled around, i had complete peace that he was in God's hands and that it He had it all taken care of.

boden wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything on wednesday before surgery, which we thought would be tough because he always wants milk and a banana as soon as he wakes up. but thank God he slept right up until we needed to leave for the hospital. the surgery was supposed to be at 9:30am, but due to delays they didn't take him back until 11am. that's a long time for a little guy to go with no food or drink, but he was such a trooper. he asked for food or water a couple times, but we just distracted him with toys and he was fine. the surgery lasted about an hour and then they let us come back to see him in recovery. he was so out of it and didn't want to wake up at all. they said some kids kick and scream when waking up for anesthesia, but thankfully he did not, he whined a little when we would try to wake him up, but just went back to sleep. we stayed for about 2 hours and he still did not want to wake up!

finally we got him up for a little bit, he drank some juice and they sent us home. at home he played for a little bit, ate some yogurt, then went back to sleep for a couple hours. once he woke up, he was pretty much back to normal boden - pulling out all his toys and running around. we only gave him tylonol once - he didn't seem to be in pain at all, so that was a blessing.

thank you again to everyone who was praying for us - we definitely felt your prayers and God's peace. Here's a couple pictures from the day:

coloring in the waiting room with mama

getting measured before surgery

falling asleep trying to drink some juice

so sleepy after surgery

playing with his "get well" balloon from our friends, the kopeckys:

wonderful husband.....and a new laptop!

as i mentioned previously, my laptop has been giving me all kinds of trouble lately (although the new charger did arrive) the battery is pretty shot and it just locks up all the time when i'm trying to work. we had talked about getting a new laptop, but i wasn't expecting it anytime soon. last saturday michael took off to go to the library to study and boden & i went to the gym. when i walked in from the gym i was talking to my sister on the phone and michael was sitting at the table and to my surprise - this was sitting next to him:

(sorry again for screaming in your ear caela) apparently he had no intentions of going to the library at all - he had been looking at laptops online and decided best buy was having a good sale so he went and got it!

it is exactly what i wanted - it has a full keyboard with number pad so i don't have to attach the separate keyboard when i do accounting and it has plenty of harddrive and memory (or whatever :) ) so that it won't lock up when i scrapbook and edit photos.

we did spend the last week hunting for my photoshop disc so we could install it - i was starting to think it was actually gone...but yesterday michael found it in a box in the closet that i didn't even know existed! whew! it's great - everything runs so much faster on the new laptop - i love it - thank you michael!