Give me a B!!

When I was younger I secretly wanted to be a cheerleader. Unfortunately, I have a horrible fear of performing, speaking, doing pretty much anything in front of a lot of people. When I had a little girl of my own I had big dreams of her doing all of the things I never did. But I swore I wouldn't force her or even push her into anything she didn't want to do. So I have sat on the sidelines of her soccer games for the past 5 years and cheered her on. Not exactly what I had in mind but she loved it and was awesome at it!
Not long after she started school this year she brought home a sign up sheet for Young Champions Cheerleading. I almost trashed it because I really didn't think she would want to do it. I asked her and she said she really wanted to give it a try. I tried really hard not to show my excitement or get my hopes up. Well, she came home from the first class and she looked like she was lit from the inside! She was so excited! She LOVED it! Her first competition is in December and I can't wait to see what she has learned!
They gave out uniforms the other day and Bailey looks adorable in it! I know I say it all the time but I can't believe how grown up she is!

Comic Relief

One of the things that I love most about my sister and her family is their ability to make me laugh until I wet myself! After the week I just had I was in much need of some comic relief! As usual, they came through for me BIG TIME!
Enjoy... and try not to wet yourself! :)

With a little help from my friends....

There are days when I really want to just hide in a corner and cry. Even with the enormous faith I have in God the past few months have been extremely tough. I honestly don't know how people get through any part of life, much less the tough parts, without God.

I also don't know how I would survive without the love, support and generosity of my family and friends. We have received more encouraging words than I even have time to tell you about. We have had a ton of leads on jobs due to people keeping their ears open for opportunities. I just can't tell you how this warms my heart and keeps me from feeling defeated.

Right after we found out that Bry lost his job, I received a call from my Mom. She told me that she didn't have a lot of money (duh), but that she wanted to help. She came up with this idea to have a huge garage sale. If you know my Mom, you know that she is the garage sale queen. Seriously, she would see the chair right out from beneath you if you're not careful! :) She wanted to tell all of her friends and co-workers about the sale and if they had anything that they wanted to get rid of, she would come haul it away for them. I have to admit, when she first told me I was a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. I mean, times are tough for EVERYONE! I really hated asking for anyone to give away their stuff. Mom reminded me that one, I wasn't asking and two, it's not like we were asking for money, just junk. :)

It took a little convincing but I finally swallowed my pride and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, Mom spread the word and D told his co-workers, Jo told some people from church, Bre pitched in and it just kind of spread! I was amazed at the stuff that showed up in my garage everyday! D dropped things off by the truckload! Friends, Family and Strangers sent clothes, electronics, furniture and everything in between. By the day before the sale my garage was completely full and I had things stacked all over my house. I couldn't get over the generosity that was shown to my family! After a ton of work, pricing, and organizing, the day of the sale was here. Mom, D and Bre came over to help. There were so many people there that all of us stayed busy from 7 am until 1 pm on Friday and Saturday! My neighbors told me later that they had trouble getting through the street because there were so many cars out there!

We ended up making a crazy amount of money for a yard sale and still had a ton of stuff left over! But what meant so much more to me than the money was how everyone was so generous with their belongings and their time. I have been completely humbled by the entire experience.

We still don't know how we are going to dig our way out of this mess. But I do know that we will be ok. How could we not be? We have so many people who love us that everything else is just gravy. Whenever I think about it I still can't get over the generosity of my family, friends and even total strangers.

I had to show off a few pics of our sale and some of the things that were donated...

Coming up for air...

For the past 3 months I feel like I have been running around in circles. I'm not sure if life has been as busy as it seems or if I have purposely made myself busy so I don't have to think about "the hard stuff". The hard stuff being...how are we going to pay the mortgage while Bry is out of a job? Where will we go if we can't pay the mortgage? What are we going to do about medical insurance? Are we going to lose our cars? How will I feed my kids? And so many other things that we never had to worry about before. Even though we still don't have the answer to those questions, I feel like I am, temporarily at least, coming up for air. (Probably because I finally got the garage sale behind me!)
I will blog more later on what we've been up to, what's going on with the job hunt, our ginormous garage sale and other things that happen in our crazy house. But for tonight, I wanted to show off one of the things that I've been doing to try to help make a little money for my family. I am really excited about it, especially after the encouragement I've received from my family and friends. I have a new blog where I am going to try to show off and sell things that I make. Check it out here and spread the word if you like what you see!!