Whirl Wind of THANKFULNESS

Well here we are in the middle of April and Ashton is already 14 months old!! I can't believe how the time has flown by.

Well our March was filled with many Thanksgiving things!

March is the end of my Cheer season. And this year as the past we ended our season with a competition in Fargo, ND. I was really excited for this year's comp as I have a squad that has excelled in talent and dedication. I wasn't a bit nervous till somethings happened the week of the competition. That week Ashton came down with the CROUP Sunday night. I got him into the Doctor that Monday morning and they gave him a steroid shot. I tell you in a matter of hours my boy was starting to act himself. In fact I thought he was well on his way but then Tuesday night he started to go down hill. THANKFULLY I was at my parents house and that Wednesday morning when he really was doing poorly my mom called the office and got him in right away. I was stressed out because I could not cancel cheer practices and now it was looking like I would be heading to Fargo that Friday by myself, with out Luke and Ashton in tow. I had to give the whole thing over to God because at the time I would have no ride BACK from Fargo. I had to attend a meeting after the competition on Saturday, meaning that I had to make pre plans to send all my girls home with parents and then Luke and I would stay in Fargo another night and come back Sunday. This all because a very important meeting that I needed to attended since I was a newly elected board member for North Dakota Cheer Coach Association.

Well after Ashton's appointment we were given antibiotics, a nebulizer and a negative flu Test (PRAISE GOD) I headed home with hope that this would all work out. Well we were THANKFUL that Ashton turned quickly and by Friday he was back to my full of energy little guy. But to be safe we decided to have Luke drive out Saturday morning instead of coming out Friday night as well.

 

So I loaded the bus with a peace knowing that I was loved by my God and I would be all OK. I was now ready for a nice, calm and relaxing bus ride to Fargo.(YEAH right!! I have 10 teenage girls riding with me)

 

We arrived safe and sound, checked into our hotel and that night I curled some THICK cheer hair to prepare for the morning. This would allow me to sleep in at least an extra hour tomorrow. As I turned my light out to go to bed at 2:15(central time) I heard the Fire alarm start clanging. I calmly grabbed my stuff and headed to find the girls. Well they apparently beat me out as i was told they BOLTED out. I chuckled as I pictured 10 girls in their bare feet and jammies flying down the stairs and into the winter air. I found them outside huddled and scared. I took them over to the next door gas station and THANKFULLY I had some cheer moms that were able to stay in the same hotel. So I was comforted to leave the girls with the moms knowing they were getting plenty of mom hugs and comforting words. I headed back to the smoky hotel in disbelief that this was happening the night before our competition!! I found a fireman and learned that someone got hungry and over cooked their pizza in the microwave. Folks he had to have scorched that thing because there was SO MUCH SMOKE!! Once we got the all clear I took the girls back to their rooms only to find that none of them in the moment of  "life or death" grabbed a key. So it took another 30 min to get them back into their rooms.

 

Back to bed I went. As i climbed back into be at 3:30 (my alarm set for 6 am) I thought in a quiet moment that not once in all this stress did I panic or have a panic attack. I mean any other day the littlest amount of any of that happening at a time I would have panicked for sure.I knew why. GOD! I THANKED Him in that quiet still moment and praised HIS HOLY NAME as I drifted off to sleep for 3 hours of beauty rest.

 

 

Later that day my day was ending in pure joy. I was THANKFUL to have Luke and Ashton back with me and we were celebrating a 5th place win that was not far off from that 4th place trophy. Of course we did not go home empty handed as one of my talented girls one this..............

Miss Akoya nabbed the 1st place spot for the Jump off competition. She did so good and won with such grace and humility. I am so THANKFUL to have her as a captain and a fellow believer. It is so amazing that God allowed for such a beautiful girl INSIDE AND OUTSIDE to lead others in HIS way through cheerleading. Great Job AKOYA!!!!


Of course our other big THANKSGIVING of life is that my Luke was offered a new job!!!! I almost can't type this with out smiling ear to ear. I/we have been praying for this for 4 years. Other opportunities have come up but none that offered the same pay and no travel what so ever. We are tickled that Luke will be home everyday by 4 pm and off on the weekends. And to top it off he can leave work at work and not have to work for hours when he is home. My man will be less stressed able to enjoy his family, have time to do the things he loves to do and eat a home cooked meal. This is big for me as many of you know the overnights that Luke was gone were very hard and at times frightening for me. I am THANKFUL for my family and friends that have helped me through this past four years. I am THANKFUL for all that God has taught me about Him through this time of trials. I have learned that no matter where I am at or who is with me, God and his promises have never changed.

Of course this means that we will no longer be able to travel back to Billings as much. Because 98% of the time we went back was because of Luke's job and Ashton and I would ride along and take advantage of the free ride to get back and see Grandma and Grandpa. It was so nice that he got to see his grandparents at least once a month. We are so THANKFUL for the grandparents he has on both sides. This kid is sooooo loved and spoiled for sure. So since we knew that we would not be making it back as much we took full advantage of the time spent with Grandpa and Grandma. It was beautiful when we were back so Grandpa and Ashton and I went to the park and played!!

Ashton is THANKFUL for a Grandpa that will go down the slide with him!! So many fun and precious memories!!

 

Well Easter has come and gone. I am always THANKFUL for Easter as it is one of my favorite holidays. It is a time for me to THANK and remember what Christ did on the cross for myself and others. I am THANKFUL for friends in my life that feel the same way and love to love on us. We got "EGGED by one of my friends. she came and hid eggs in our yard and some had treats in them and some did not. The ones that did not represented the empty tomb when Christ conquered death for us ALL!! Ashton sure had fun finding his eggs. OK, OK he actually like pointing at the Kitty and saying "OWWWWW!" (meow) But it was nice to have our own little Easter egg hunt and not worry about him getting trampled by big kids while trying to even get one egg at the community egg hunts.

It was such a good Easter just reflecting on all that God did and will continue to do for us! We finished our celebration that day with a Ham dinner with the Andersons and Patty. It was so relaxing and good time. THANKFUL to have friends that we can just chill with and to celebrate Christ with.

 

So March was a THANKFUL month. I am so THANKFUL for all of you and I pray that you will be able to find time in your day to go to your quiet place and THANK God for the many blessings in your life. Just so you know these THANKFUL moments did not come without pain, stress or trial. But it's the BLESSING in the day that carries us through the next hard time. It changes your perspective and sweetens your moments with Christ. I hope you can take time in your day to think about the many things you are THANKFUL and take that moment and turn and GLORIFY our GOD because he has loved, cherished and blessed you through it all. Till next time!

 

Love,

Luke, Audrey and Ashton

 Happy Birthday Ashton

Well it happened. My boy turned 1! I can't believe it! This past year I have learned so much. I learned and seen what unconditional love looks like in the flesh. God has grown my patience and heart by ten fold! I have prayed for these moments and got to experience them to the fullest. I can't be thankful enough for this. So we had to celebrate and in a BIG way!! I wanted those closest to us to be there and it turned out to be a hit. It was so wonderful to see how many love Ashton as much as Luke and I do. He is a lucky little guy.

For Starters my dear sweet sister in christ, Jess made Ashton a cute little crown and shirt. So we had to start our night out with a little photo shoot. Which Jess so graciously took pictures through out the night.

I had such a hard time picking a "theme" I wanted the perfect party and I started to look on pinterest. Pinterest can be the DEVIL! Don't get me wrong I love it but it leaves this expectation on my heart that comes from a wrong place, if you catch my drift. I decided to keep it personal and simple. We have always called Ashton our monkey.

1. Ashton has this cow lick/ crazy hair. His hair has always been crazy from birth and early on he only had it on the back/top of his head. And he looked like a baby chimp with it.

2. Ashton has monkey feet. From an early age around 4-6 months he would grab things with his feet and bring it up to his mouth. (he made it very difficult to change diapers this way, some days)

So it was settled MONKEY theme! Done. I can do that! So I get back on Pinterest. BAD IDEA! I had instant stress with trying to make the perfect monkey party. So I shut my computer and went to the party store. (thankfully I was in Billings at the time) SO YES I bought my decorations. But did make my cake and cupcakes. HA! Take that pinterest!

Ashton early on discovered his love for meat and loves pulled pork. So I made pulled pork! It was a hit thanks to my Dad for the recepie and some slight rescuing in the end. It was tradtional with the sauce and topped with coleslaw. Since most kiddos don't like meat/pork I made peanut butter and jelly. We kept it simple and fresh with veggies,dip,fruit and bananas cut rolled in peanut butter and rice krispies.

Well the food was a hit and I think the rest of the party as well. Jess captured some great moments and shots.



This is my other Sister in Christ!! What a blessing she has been to Luke, Ashton and I. Meet Jenn and Hannah one of her many bugs/children.

The Birthday club. These gals and their buggins, are dear to me because we all had our kiddos within a couple weeks together. So we have been celebrating birhtdays the past couple of weeks together. Thankful I had them to go through the first year with.

Meet Jess the one behind the camera, t-shirt and crown. That's Mason her littlest bug.

Just some of my favorite pictures of the night. We have my dad "papa" and Jael and then Grandma with the birthday boy and Colton and his balloon. And did you see all those cute babies sittin on the table.

Now some cake pictures...... 

Ashton wasn't to sure about his cake and all the spectators watching. He was so cute with it all! Ah look Jael likes the cake! 

It was a fun night and again I am so thankful for all that celebrated with us and all that have prayed for this little boy!! Love to you all!

Life in the Jesus spa!!

Have you ever felt TRULY relaxed. You know where not a single muscle is tense?? I mean I have been relaxed. For instance when I go and get a massage or my hair done. You know the things we pay hundreds of dollars to do!! But like always I come out of the spa get into my car and within an hour things hurt again or I feel tight and out of order. ( SHHHH do not tell my hubby this.....he will not let me spend the money on it ever again!) But I long to go again just for the moment.

Well recently I took out some clutter of my life. Clutter that I never assumed would be stress in my life. Ok lets get personal. I suffer from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) I have had it since 2002. Well long story short I have dealt with the anxiety in my life WAY TOO LONG!!! There were seasons in that time frame where God was so good to me and I would have long stretches of good days with the occasional gut wrenching worried filled days usually surrounded by having to stay alone. Fast forward to the year 2010. Well I started to have physical symptoms to my stress. BOO. And I started to notice them getting worse and worse. It was like this nasty cycle I was on I would feel a symptom stress out about it and then eventually over a few days feel better have a couple good days and then have another symptom. It got to the point I started to wonder if something was REALLY wrong with me and maybe I needed to go to the doctor about it. I was telling my bible study/accountability group about this and saying how I should just suck it up and go in and talk to a doc about it.

Well before I had the chance to make the appointment ( me really just procrastinating it) I had the worst feeling symptom just the other day. Enough to scare the crud right out of me. I called my mom (also my nurse) and made appointment to see a doctor. Because this was WAY more than anxiety it HAD to be. I called my dear friend afterwards to pray with and finally just decided I need to go talk it over with someone. So I talked and talked and talked. She listened. Good friend I tell ya. I came to the conclusion that I had some clutter in my life that I needed to be DONE with. And I felt a power of God come over me and reassuring that COMPLETELY. I went to my appointment broke down to my mom in the office about it. ( my poor mother. Please buy her chocolate and coffee if you see her. She deserves it!!) I had an excellent conversation with the Doctor and walked out of that office DONE with it!! Well I was sure that all this excitement was going to probably cause another attack but I felt different, well a little.

 I got up the next day got on my computer to  opened up my Beth Moore blog and began to read. ( I am doing a memory verse challenge) She talked about claiming your verse. And at one point made you recite your 1st memory verse. Mine:

 

1 John 4:18- There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made in perfect love.

 

 

And then she said, "now say your second verse to yourself." Mine again:

 

Galatians 5:1- It for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

 

You see, I picked these verses thinking, hmm these will be good ones, but I never truly understood claiming them and what that meant. Well I claimed them. And I can i tell you last night after I put my sweet boy to bed. I snuggled on the couch with my hubby and realized how at PEACE I was. I mean I can't remember the last time I was not worrying about this or what should I do for this or will I have a good day or bad day tomorrow. I mean, I was just at PEACE. And it was a peace that lasted through the night. I had the best sleep in a LONG while. Woke up feeling that I had some thanking to do.

I am sure that I will have more battles to come but now i feel like I can at least stand and battle!!! Why?? Because I visited the JESUS SPA and yes I feel refreshed and I feel this refreshment will last more than an hour and it was FREE!! Oh and I plan on returning to this spa on a regular basis. I discovered there is nothing sweeter than your time with your savior. And I love my SAVIOR!! So let me leave you with this verse that Francis Chan reminded me about in the Crazy Love Book.

 

 

Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

 

With Christ in my corner.....COME AT ME BRO!!  (hehe) Love ya all and thanks for letting me share a more personal blog than the usual Ashton updates.  



WHAT?? JAN 7TH??

By my title you can tell I am SHOCKED that it is already Jan 7th!!! Opps sorry to those waiting for an update on the Land of Lenz. Where did December go??? Oh wait I think I kind of remember it....

The beginning of December started out with New furniture for my living room!! I had started to think that after owning our first furniture set for 9 years and only spending like 200 dollars on it. It was time for some new stuff. But looking at what it would cost there was NO WAY the hubs was going to go for it. He can be a frugal man....So I tried to put the bug in his ear, and got the reaction that I expected. So when we went black friday shopping he shocked me when he asked if I wanted to check out this furniture sale at furniture row. SOLD! My man CAN NOT turn down a good deal. They threw in a free 51 inch TV!! SOLD! So the first week of december I worked a loooonnnngg shift at work and came home to NEW furniture!! YIPPPEEE. I of course had to get my christmas decorations up to show case it! :)

Second week of December the start of Basketball season!! :) YEEHAW!! This is my favorite time to be a cheer coach. 1. because I actually kind of understand whats going on in the game. 2. I am not freezing in the bleachers 3. I have more time to spend with my crazy cheerleaders.4. we start putting our competition routine together. I love my girls!! This year I have an amazing group. Many of them Love Jesus and they have no probelm showing it!! Looking forward to the season with them.

Third week of December, bring on the Christmas PARTIES!!!!!! My first one was my work christmas party always a good time with some pretty crazy ladies!! We hosted our small groups christmas party. Complete with ugly christmas sweaters, fun games, good food and great friends what a blast it was!! And then the next night I had 23!!! yes 23!!! teenagers in my home for the youth group christmas party. With the typical crazy white elephant gift exchange! you would not believe what teenagers fight over as a gift. The popular ones this year was a spiderman shirt and zebra slippers?? Good times I tell you and then I ended it with another christmas party with my cheerleaders. Thankfully I did not have to plan that one.

Next was Luke and I's 9 year anniversary!! 9 YEARS people!! I can't believe it. Where did the time go. A dear friend of mine offered to watch Ashton ALL day for us with one stipulation, we had to spend the ENTIRE day together so no running errands etc. So we dropped Ashton off and then Luke drove me to my favorite flower shop. There he a  beautiful arrangement waiting for me!! We then went christmas shopping for Ashton. Luke bought me a dress and earrings to wear on Christmas. We then grabbed lunch at the brick house. Did some decor shopping picked out our future dinning room table and decided to take advantage of our nice quite house and picked up dinner and rented a movie!! It was so relaxing and such an awesome day!

 

CHRISTMAS!!

We had all of my family over after the christmas eve service and opened gifts with my nephews and nieces. Ate WAY TOO much food and enjoyed a Christmas Story. The next morning we let Ashton open his christmas stocking and then we bundled up and headed over to my parents house to open up more gifts and enjoy a good ham dinner. It was such a relaxing day!

 

 

Other awesome highlights this last month.

 

Ashton started crawling and is now FAST at it!

Ashton went sledding for the first time

Ashton got to go in the indoor play park at the rec center

Ashton is a MAMA's boy

Ashton discovered his love of pork sausage and bacon

Ashton Now has THREE teeth!! He looks like a deranged hamster :)

 

* I meant to put more photos up but I am having technical difficulties. So instead here is one super cute photo to make up for the others not posted.*

Much love to you all!!!