Happy Easter!

What a wonderful day!!!! Happy Easter to everyone! The Courtney Family had a great day! It started out with the Easter Bunny coming to visit. Jon-Mical got a basket filled with toys and candy... to tell you the truth, the "Easter Bunny" was WAAAAY more excited than Jon-Mical could ever be! We then went to church. Jakson not only had is first Easter, but was also baptized today. Honestly, I don't know how much I buy in to all of this child baptism stuff, but there is a part in the baptism when Josh and I stand up in front of the entire congregation and promise to raise our child to love and serve our risen Lord to the best of our ability.... I DO buy into that! I pray every night for my children... for their safety, for their health, for their future... but I also pray for me and for Josh. I pray that we will be the parents that we need to be for them. I pray that we will not only love them, but that we will SHOW them the love of God... that is a tough responsibility for us... Thank God that He will guide us through this. Happy Easter, Everyone! May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. May the Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace.  

Easter Party and shots...

Today was a pretty busy day for the Courtneys. Josh had his first day as an interim Biology teacher at Lavergne High School. He is filling in for a teacher on maternity leave. He was very nervous this morning, but texted me a few times to let me know that he was still alive. At the end of the day he is still optimistic and actually wants to go back on Monday, so I would say that it was a good day for him... but he does have some stories already! :) Jon-Mical had his Easter party at school. He had to take a basket with treat-filled eggs this morning. He was SO excited! He came home with 18 treat-filled eggs and proceeded to hide them all over the house and "find" them for the rest of the afternoon. He had a blast, but we ended the day with only 14 eggs in the basket... oh well, that may be a nice little candy treasure for me to find probably some time in August. Jakson had his 2 month wellness doctor appointment today. This is such a weird feeling! On one hand I can NOT believe that Jakson is already 2 months old! On the other hand it feels like a LIFETIME ago when I was pregnant and we only had one kid... wow... life was simple then! :) I had a pretty busy day at work too! Very drama-filled, but I guess that is all that I should say. The good thing is, it is now 8:30, both kids are in bed sleeping soundly and Josh and I are about to meet our neighbors out on the deck for a little adult conversation and down time before bed! Sigh... life is good!

First Day Back...

Well, we all survived. My babies survived their first day without Mommy. (They were fine.) I survived my first day without them. The good thing is that I was very busy all day, and so my mind was elsewhere most of the time. It also helped that Mimi sent me hourly texts to update me. They had a great day and so I am at peace with all of this! Prayers have been answered... why am I still always so surprised?!?!

Sad, sad day...

Well, today was a very sad day... Sundays are usually very happy for me. Sundays are the days that I get to spend with my family. They are the days that we all get up and go to church. We send Jon-Mical to the nursery and then get to hear all the way home about how much fun he had and who he played with... Sundays are the days when we worship with our church family. We get to sing and pray and thank God for all that He has done in our lives and in our world. We also pray for God to be with us in the coming week. It is a good start to the day. We then usually come home and eat lunch and play outside all afternoon. Josh and I work on various yard/garage projects while Jon-Mical runs around getting the clean garage all messy again. It is a good day! But today... today was not good. Today I was able to spend most of the day with my family, but all I could think about was the fact that my maternity leave is now over. Tomorrow I not only have to leave one son, which has always been very, very hard, but now, for the first time, I have to leave TWO sons! I have to leave Jon-Mical sitting there in his PJ's, eating a Pop Tart and watching Dora. He will, no doubt, ask me to sit and watch it with him and, for the first time in 8 weeks, I will have to say no! I will have to leave my new, sweet, perfect Jakson. He will not ask me to stay or even acknowledge that I am gone, but I know that he will notice that his Mommy is not always there when he cries. He knows my smell and he will not have the comfort of knowing that his mommy is around for the whole day. I am very sick about this.


 The ONE good thing about all of this is that I have the most perfect babysitter, my wonderful mother-in-law coming to watch them every day for the next 5 weeks. I do know that even though I am not there to take care of the two kids that mean EVERYTHING to me, they are being taken care of by someone who honestly loves them almost as much as I do... that is very comforting. 


I do hope and PRAY that my boys will one day know how much I love them. I want them to know that I have to work. I do NOT choose to work. I would choose to be at home with them. I want them to know that I think of them EVERY SECOND while I am away. I love them with everything in me... 


Sigh... is summer break here yet?

Family Photos...

Yesterday we went for round two of our family pictures. Debbie, our photographer, decided that we needed to redo our family pictures from the last session. I thought that they were good, but she wanted to do them again because of the lighting in the first set. She wanted to do this session outside, which is what I wanted the first session to be but we couldn't because of the weather, so I was on board! We met her at Cannonsburg. It is an old, historical town in downtown Murfreesboro. It is very cool with many great areas for great pictures! I was nervous because Jakson does not like to be outside yet... but the session went well and we ended up with some great pics so far! (I have only seen five of them!) We really had a fun time! Jon-Mical and Jakson both did a good job! I asked my mom to come too so that she could help out with Jakson and make sure that we were not doing any fake smiling! I am so excited to see the rest of the pics! I have posted a few...

Good Grief...

Good Grief... I feel like I have said this about 200 times today! 


1. Good grief, why in the WORLD was I ever worried about Jon-Mical talking. He does NOT stop these days. He will ask the same question 37 times in a row even though I answered it the first time.


2. Good grief, Josh's and Jon-Mical's allergies are nuts right now! I have wiped snotty noses ALL DAY! 


3. Good grief, I just learned that the 13 year cicadas are coming at the beginning of May. I don't know why I thought they did not come until late summer. I thought I had more time... Ahhhhh!


4. Good grief, Jakson had a MAJOR MAJOR blowout today and ruined one of his outfits...


5. Good grief, I ran for the first time today with two kids in tow. My jogging stroller is a BEAST and I am slightly disappointed that it took me so long to get in good cardiovascular shape and a very short time to be right back at square one!


6. Good grief, Jakson has not been at his best today. He is just not sleeping well and he is SO tired... why do kids fight sleep so hard when I would give a million dollars for 3 straight hours these days!


7. Good grief, I only have one more week on maternity leave and then I have to leave my babies all day every day. BOOOOO!!!!!


Please know, whoever out there is actually reading this, that these "good griefs" are very minor and today was still a fabulous day! My life is a crazy, hot mess right now, but I would not trade one second! I have two wonderful children and a husband who is not only the absolute love of my life, but also my best friend in the whole world. Life is good! Jakson just woke up... good grief...

Sigh....

What a wonderful Spring day!!! We had so much fun today. I had a few errands to run this morning, so Josh got to be home alone with TWO children for the first time! He did a great job, but I am sure that he was ready for me to get home. When I got home the boys were eating lunch. We ate and then went to the "slide down playground." Jon-Mical has named all of the playgrounds around him. The "slide down playground" is the one across the street at Barfield Elementary School. It does have many slides but no more than the other playground, so I have no idea where this name came from. We played there for a while and then came back home and did a little Spring Cleaning. Jon-Mical is a very blessed kid. He has TOO many toys. This is because he has four doting grandparents who all LOVE to spoil him rotten. We have been trying to talk to Jon-Mical and explain to him that he has a lot of toys and that there are some kids who do not have any toys at all! He is very sympathetic of these poor kids until we get to the part about him sharing some of his toys with them. This is when the typical 3 year old comes out and he gets very upset at the thought of giving up any of his precious toys. Today we went through the same talk and then actually got out a box to take to Goodwill. Jon-Mical did pretty well and actually put some TRAINS in the box!!! We now have a huge box filled with toys, books, and clothing for Goodwill sitting by the door. After our cleaning project we spent the rest of the afternoon lying on a blanket in the backyard. Sigh... what a perfect way to spend the afternoon! We talked, played, ate grapes, picked dandelions, and just wasted the day away... perfection. (Even Jakson enjoyed being outside. I think the picture says it all!)

Here We Go!

Well, I have decided that I am going to start blogging. I NEED a way to save our many, daily memories. I tried to be a scrapbooker... that failed miserably. I have tried to keep pictures in nice, pretty picture albums... that also was a bust. So, in light of this, I do not have high expectations for this blog, but I am going to exhaust all options before declaring myself a complete failure in this category. As I am typing this, Jon-Mical has asked me a million questions, had to go poop (which requires assistance), dumped his breakfast in the floor, and needed me to turn on a movie. Because of all of this, my posts may be few and far between, but... Here we go!