Some recent happenings

 Abbie has started gymnastics recently and is really enjoying it!  Here are some pictures from her recent demonstration.

 Lily is not in gymnastics, but that face is just too cute to not include in our pictures:)

 Balance beam time.

 Floor flips.

 We are SO thankful for Nana and Pap Pap.  Abbie and her first gymnastics trophy.

Timmy had his first Christmas show.  He was so excited to sing every song for me in the car on the way to the show.  Love him!!!

Christmas traditions

It is that time of year where Christmas celebrations are going on everywhere you turn. It is a joyous season, but can also be a season, if we allow it, to be too busy that we forget to slow down and find the real meaning in the season. Christmas is all about celebrating Jesus. For our family we have traditions we do each year like visiting Santa, playing in the snow, going to the Nutcracker, baking cookies, etc... Those traditions are fun and provide so many memories each year, but there are the simple things of just being with our family and having that time to grow with each other and spiritually grow in ourselves that are just as meaningful. Here's to a season filled with fun memories but also allows for the freedom for God to speak and grow within each of us as we take the time to on purpose slow down and enjoy the times of non planned celebrations just as much as the planned ones.

I am a good mom!

I am living in a time where it is imperative for me to tell myself good things about myself.  Things that are in agreement with God's word.  I am coming out of a season of chaos and whirlwinds and adapting to a normal life again has me searching for who I really am.  I can come up with all kinds of answers to that question, but the real question is who does God say that I am?  I happened to read a devotional today that talked about living a satisfied life.  It really spoke to me so I thought it would be good for me to write about it.  There was a quote from Benjamin Franklin that said "To be content makes a poor man rich, and discontent makes a rich man poor."  The devotional went on to take about being "Satisfied" can be defined as the sense of having enough or doing enough.  That led me to think about my year filled with chaos I was constantly feeling as though I didn't have enough or wasn't doing enough.  I know these thoughts are not true but just acknowledging my feelings.  When there are so many responsibilities on one person the demands can tend to eat at you. Of course the only way to get true satisfaction is to live with the true love, joy and peace of Jesus resonating in our hearts.  In order for me to get my heart on a healthier path, I am starting with taking a new perspective.  I have enough where I am at with Jesus in my life.  This doesn't mean that I am not striving for more, because we all have goals and should never stay stagnant in life.  However, I do not have to be everything to everyone at this moment.  I can rest in who I am in Jesus.  I will never do everything that I want to do, but I am always doing enough in Him.  I will never have everything that I want to have, but I will always have enough in Him.  I love myself and I am defending who I am in Him each day!

God is real

There are some things in my life that are really therapeutic to me.  Music has always been high up on that list but I have also found that writing or any form of self expression brings some kind of healing to my soul.  For whatever reason that is just part of who I am.  If you know me, I am kind of different from the average Joe.  Or in my case, Joa.  I am in this stage of life where everything I know has been kinda shuffled up like a deck of cards, and then half the cards were thrown out the window.  I lost my dad a few months ago.  You see my dad had dementia which along with some other health challenges that are common in the elderly.  My dad was a great person.  He was also raised Jewish.  I am not going to get into any religious debates here and I am quite the lover not a fighter personality and was not going to bring up Christianity to anyone who is not open to hear about it.  But, with that being said, there is a time for everything and when I knew I would be foolish if I waitied any longer to present the salvation prayer to my dad, I did it.  I had to just do it and I think my dad may have been surprised at what was happening but in no way did he seem upset or offended.  He understood I was coming from a place of compassion and wanting to see him in Heaven someday.  Infact, he easily received the prayer and agreed to say amen.  In my heart I still had questions that only God himself could anwser, but I had a huge confirmation when the Chaplin from his hospice team called me and told me that the nurse had just visited him and informed the Chaplin that my dad was in an awake but unconcious state.  I knew that this wasn't really true because that was common for my dad to seem like that but if there was someone there he wanted to talk to, he would and there would be no thinking he was unconcious at all!  So the Chaplin thought that he would get no response from my dad because of what the nurse had said.  To his great surprise, he was met with my dad talking and sharing all about his Jewish faith but he said he felt as though he was a Messianic Jew because my dad wanted to pray the Lord's prayer and was very comfortable using the name of Jesus.  Holy Spirit was at work and my heart was jumping for joy!!! The Chaplin said that his visit with my dad had made his whole day and that the energy that my dad showed when he was visiting was huge.  My dad was filled with greatfulness for the Chaplin and this whole story brought my faith a huge confirmation that my dad's spirit was getting ready for his transition to Heaven.  These events were great ways that God worked in my dad's life.  There were many other times earlier in his life where God had restored our relationship as well.  It has been on my heart to write this testimony out to remind myself of how great God is!  I have had to lean on Him more in this season than any other time in my life.  I am still in a transition period now as I grieve and SO need Him each day.  Praise God for giving us life where we don't have to carry our own burdens but we can cast them on Him because He cares for us.  Even in those seasons where it seems like no one cares and the burden seems SO heavy on you, you don't have to receive the burden.  May God continue to show me how to heal and grow.  Romans 8:28 has been my verse for awhile now. 

Freedom

In life God has given us so much freedom and I usually find that for me it is this freedom that is as much as a great gift as it is overwhelming.  My confession is that sometimes I just want people to tell me what to do, and exactly how to do it.  This way I don't have to take any responsibility for being wrong.  I have dealt with this in my music performance.  If I am on stage and asked to improvise a solo, on one hand I think wow that sounds so fun and what an honor to be able to create a solo, but on the other hand I say, no please just tell me what to play.  After awhile I started to recognize this pattern in my life and realized that God doesn't want me to live in fear of making a mistake.  I can teach it to my kids all day long, but until I step out and live in this freedom and accept the grace to live each experience fully.  To step out into the exciting places where I may not know what is to come but I am growing as I take each step I am heading towards the dreams that are exciting to me and I am setting an example and giving others permission to do the same.  As I look at the gift of freedom, I see endless possibilities.  I see God's infinite creativity and I see grace.  We are given this freedom because it helps us become who we are.  We don't have to fit into any certain mold or do anything in the same manner as another person.  As long as God is our source, we are walking with His righteousness and His grace covers us.  As we step out we are stepping out with the dreams He has given us and He is growing our character to be more Christ like.  He is always guiding our ways so that we become better each day and we are walking in the direction of our dreams.  One of my favorite quotes is by Henry David Thoreau, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined." What an exciting way to life!  Today I am fully embracing the freedom that God has given me and asking Him what is my next step in the journey?

Balance and Energy

Once again, it has been awhile since I have blogged.  I love blogging because it is something that I can have to record sections of my life and it is also an outlet for me to discuss things that have been going on in life.  I may not always set aside time consistently to blog but when it gets important to me, I will make the time. Time is one of those things in life that I treasure.  It is more valuable than anything else since I am really a quality time girl.  I can't think of anything greater than one on one time with a friend or family member!

Life as a mom is busy and I am constantly seeking balance for myself and my family.  There is always that laundry pile that never seems to go away, and then there are the things I enjoy doing. Like playing with the kids, or cooking, exercising or performing or teaching music.  Not to mention I sometimes like to enjoy a clean house:)  Me as the planner that I can be sometimes, I'll try to plan out a schedule to balance things out, but I know life does not always go as planned.  I still believe in planning and taking personal responsibility for each choice in my life, but I don't allow myself to get frustrated if my day doesn't go exactly as planned.  A scripture that will always feed me is Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with ALL of you heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."  What a great word!  It is so simple, yet profound and it has the ability to speak to me no matter what season or journey I am walking through in my life! Me being the controller that I am, I have this tendency to trust in my own works and if I did enough good things throughout my day. While doing good things in my day is a good thing, it CANNOT be my source of trust and faith for how my life will develop.  As I daily walk through making a greater effort to cast my cares on God and receive His joy and peace and rest because I CAN trust Him to do what I cannot do.  Because my works in any given day, will NEVER be perfect, but His works ALWAYS were perfect and ALWAYS will be.  I would much rather trust in HIM although it is much easier if I do it myself (just kidding, haha!!)  I think it is actually my lack of faith that wants to do it myself, so I need to resist doing anything that is separate from what I have prayed because with God things just work, on your own things might work but there is a lot more toil involved. I am writing all of this to encourage myself that I can always grow to trust God more and I can always learn to only put works into things that I have prayed through first.

Now onto some memories I wanted to write about in the Burdick household these past months.  We had a great Christmas.  I feel as if my kids are just growing up way too fast now.  I have one turning two this next week and the other turning four in a month.  I still feel as if my youngest is a newborn, and still probably treat him like it some days.  Christmas was filled with Santa visits, Zoo lights, baking, and Abbie had her first Dance recital.  I took three weeks off from teaching so I did have a lot of time with the kids and it went by super quick!  Timmy got a lot of little people toys, legos and cars while Abbie got a Bike, a few Lollaloopsi dolls, and a scooter.  She spent many a day after Christmas playing with Timmy's cars though.  She has a lot of fun playing with her brother and has a little tomboy side to her. The bike hasn't been her favorite thing, we are still working through getting her confidence up while she rides but I know it will happen eventually.  Timmy is excited about his birthday coming up and he asked for a "Choo-Choo" birthday so we are doing Thomas again.  He isn't talking a ton but has been using a few new words.  He will tell you he is turning 2 with his words and his finger numbers and he also knows the number 3. His favorite things now are still Woof woofs and cars and also his toy boots from Dora which He asks for multiple times a day. He is also in this phase where he has a new attachment to Daddy and we have to call him and have him say night night to Daddy on the phone before his nap. Abbie has started taking violin lesson with Auntie Amber and I have been setting aside some fun time to encourage playing and sometimes I'll play with her.  Timmy has asked about it but seems to understand he has to wait until he is older although I do feel like he will be a very musical child.  Abbie is enjoying it and many times has said that the violin is her favorite part of the day but she is still very honest about things being hard and her not wanting to do the hard things.  Each day we cannot tackle the world, but we do make progress:)  I am very much thankful in this season to have the amount of time I do with my kids as I can see how fast it goes.  Here are some pictures from our last few months:

We made felt trees this year, Timmy had one too:)

Abbie and her friend Kennedy backstage before their first dance recital

Us backstage:)

Abbie's first expression when she woke up from nap to see the Christmas tree had been put up!

Abbie and Timmy made little Christmas tree crafts

Their visit with Santa this year

Ginger bread house and baking day!

The finished product

Thanks Auntie Amber for coming for our baking day!

Abbie had a ton of fun!

She is very into her "styles"

Timmy and his "cheesy" face

Santa handprints from Salt dough craft

Us on Christmas eve before church service!

I wrote all the letters then Abbie traced them

We did the same for the thank you note

They had SNOW at the Zoo!

Precious story time moments with Daddy are happening more and more as he is home more:)

Playing in the snow with Pap Pap

Did I mention we got to see Disney on Ice!?

Our new family pastime, roasting marshmallows outside

Marshmallow time, notice Abbie's "up" shoes

More marshmallow time

Timmy's play dough creation, he said it was a woof woof

Abbie made a pie

My daughter never ceases to amaze me!  She cut out Jasmine with her safety scissors all by herself.  I thought she did a great job!

Thankful hearts

Again it has been awhile since I have posted.  We have just celebrated Thanksgiving and with an almost 4 year old and almost 2 year old it gets more and more fun each passing year.  This year Pinterest inspired me on a few simple craft ideas to provide teachable moments on things we are thankful for and simply the changing of the seasons (which we still have yet to experience here in AZ, our a/c is still running and it's almost Dec.)  My kids both had fun with these activities and I gave myself enough grace so that I wouldn't feel horrible for missing a day here and there.  Still even though I have been a mom for awhile now, I am learning more each day about grace and that it isn't possible to fit perfection into each day.  For me, prioritizing simple little things I want to accomplish each day and balancing these things out on a weekly basis is very helpful.  I am the type of person that wants to do everything and I really have to make an effort to slow down my pace to make sure my children are not overwhelmed.

 We all had a great Thanksgiving with our entire family, Tim's parents, his sister, her roomate and my dad. Our family also did the turkey trot this year which was really fun and as long as we are not hosting Thanksgiving at our house I would do it every year. Timmy is talking more and more everyday.  His favorite more recent words are Boots (from Dora), yo-yo since Abbie has been playing with a yo-yo a lot recently, and Blue when he is coloring.  He still loves dogs which he calls woof woofs.  Abbie is still enjoying her dance class and has a recital coming soon. It has been fun listening to her inquisitive side as she has recently began to ask a lot more questions about everything. She also has started singing a lot more so I am wondering how her musical interests will grow as she grows.

We have enjoyed our fall and now we are getting ready for a great Christmas which will probably be my next blog post.

My halloween princess Cinderella, didn't get a picture of the superman this year:(

Our fall craft wall

close up of our thankful tree

Pumpkin farm time

Timmy enjoyed feeding the animals, Abbie wanted nothing to do with it!

They both LOVE to swing now!  They are so big!

They had fun at the zoo with a friend!