His Excellent Orchestration

 God is so good. I love how He orchestrates certain things in our lives as encouragement and hope for us. Braeden has been discouraged lately and wanted to give up on sports all together because he felt like he was finished growing and no amount of work would help him be tall enough to go on the next level. Tonight we watched Kavontae Turpin fight with all his heart and play an amazing game out on TCU's field. After the game, we were waiting on the shuttle to take us back to our car and up walks Kavontae Turpin. Braeden went over to talk to him and asked if he could take a picture with him. At that point he realized that they were the same size...he had no idea. His confidence just did a complete 180. Praise God for allowing us to go to this game we hadn't even planned on going to, in order to be in the right place at the time. He is always right on time. 

Friendship

The past five months have been a little rough health wise for my parents so my sister and I had to really step up our game to help take care of them. I am so grateful to have a sister that when I get run down she jumps in to help and I can do the same for her. I must be extra special though because God not only blessed me with a sister, He blessed me with the best childhood friends ever! They knew I needed a break and some fun even if we all had to take a little plane ride to make that happen and meet up for only 24 hours. I can tell you first hand that true friendship is not being inseparable, it's being separated and nothing changes. We still laughed like we did back in middle and high school. Back then we didn't realize we were making memories, we only knew we were having fun. We did our best to reminisce and relive all those memories while we were in Vegas. We were delirious from lack of sleep but each time we tried to get a short nap, we couldn't stop talking and laughing. We laughed until we cried so many times. I am over the moon thankful for Lee and Nichole! In the end you always go back to the people that were there in the beginning. 

12 already?

I can not begin to fathom that in only 2 days my smallest angel will turn a shocking 12 years old. I think it hit me like a ton of bricks the moment I snapped a picture of her right before she walked into middle school cheer tryouts. I remember 4 years ago seeing pictures of the girls in Braeden's grade trying out for cheerleader and thinking gosh, they are getting so big. I think had I not had that memory of them I would still be in complete denial that my little girl is half grown. 

After drowning in a tad bit of self pity, I received a text saying that the new cheerleaders would need their pictures taken for the news paper on Monday morning, I decided that what I needed was a girl day and a little shopping therapy with my Chloe. This way, she would be thrilled to get a new outfit for pictures and I could attempt to savor  some one on one time with my not so little girl. I told her the plan for the day and how her Daddy and Braeden were going to spend the day doing boy things and that we were going shopping. She was ecstatic to say the least. She immediately ran to her room and started laying out her clothes and looking through her closet to find the perfect pair of shoes/wedges for the day and I sank a tiny bit more into the pit of seeing just how grown up she's becoming. As I sat and pouted over my cup of coffee and discussed these revelations of feelings I was having with Chad, I found out he too was dealing with the same issues. Wondering just where time had gone and who was this jaw dropping, gorgeous young lady growing up overnight in front of us? We ended our conversation as we heard Chloe coming out of the bathroom after finishing up her shower. After getting dressed, she bounced down the hall and completely melted my heart. 

Mom, will you blow dry and fix my hair for me?

It was as if God reached down then and there to wrap me in His arms, comfort me and show me I still have my same little girl I've always had. 

Absolutely, baby girl, absolutely.