Hopp Family Get together…to celebrate the lives of Grandma and Grandpa Hopp

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Some may know, some may not.  My grandfather was diagnosed with Lung Cancer and after much testing, and other stuff i don’t really know about – they found cancer in multiple places and multiple organs, but the majority and worst of the bunch, was a fast spreading brain cancer.  I know that God can move mountains, God is a healer, He is the Almighty physician…and i trust that if it is God’s will, He will heal Grandpa of the cancer, but I also know that God might be ready to call to His servant to come home to Him.  In amongst all the findings, there were plans to have a family get together to cover the spring time and the Christmas get together that the family never had last year.  thankfully, we did get to enjoy my grandparents for Christmas and our Children enjoyed the time as well!  But, my family decided to keep our spring get together on the calendar, and this was it.  Quite a few family that we haven’t seen in a while were there, and even a niece of my Grandpa’s was there, that I've never even met!  My grandma swore that i reminded her of Julie (my grandpa’s niece)…and i finally met her…It was a very nice get together, and it was nice to spend some more time with the family.  Oh how i will continue to pray for more days with Grandma and Grandpa.  Each day is a blessing.

Playtime with some great friends!

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Mother’s day 05/10/2009

A special Mother’s day for me…not because of anything in particular, except for those that i was able to spend it with.  We started out with Daddy getting the kids fed and even preparing a plate for me of waffles (if you all know Jeremy, he doesn’t cook…but it was such a welcome thing that he prepared the plate, food and drink for me and had me sit with them to eat.  We finished getting ready and headed to Church…wonderful service.  And we were even blessed with the 3 & 4 year olds singing in big church (gabby’s still in the 4 year old class because of where her birthday falls.) so how awesome to have both of our older kiddos on stage.  they were even by each other at first, and then Gabby disappeared behind Tyler, not to be seen again until they went off of the stage back to their classrooms!  Neither one sang…go figure (they knew the songs very well, and loved to sing them…but they don’t do well on stage with the lights, people, etc…they both froze.)  But, I'm a mom, and I'm proud of all efforts, even if the only effort at this age was walking on the stage…Then we headed off to Grandma’s house to deliver a flower hand picked by Gabs and Ty (lex doesn’t care yet).  Tracked down Grandma and took some pics and talked for a bit.  I then went to track down my mom, and she was on her way up to Saenz greenhouse and then to Grandma and Grandpa Hopp’s house.  So, i got to see both my mom and my grandma (and some other family as well!)  We had planned on stopping by my Grandparents briefly, but it was a little more extended than we planned…but it was a blessing to all involved.

Gabby’s friend party for Mother’s Day

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May 9, 2009…We got our first invitation to a friends party for Miss Gabriella.  Her friends Sydney and Mackenzie were hostessing a mother’s day party at their home.  Who could pass that up.  (we’ve been to birthday parties before, but this was a school friend invite…not just us mom’s inviting our own friends over for our kids to play).  Erica (the girls’ mom) had lunch that her girls helped her with and little gift baggies and each of our girls made us mother’s day bracelets with all the fixings provided by erica…it was very cool and gabby and i had fun.  Too bad that while we were there we realized through conversations that none of the friends gabby had made at preschool (at least the ones i know the most about) will be attending the same school as gabby.  Bummer!  Gabby is not the socialite of the family either…while the girls were all playing, she mainly kept to herself, i think so that she could play with all of the princess toys that syd and kenzie had…i so wish she would play WITH her friends!

Big daddy…

ok…have you ever seen the movie “big daddy”?  it stars Adam Sandler (ugh…i really don’t like him…but he does have some funny stuff – and by some, i mean…a little).  Well, he kind of fosters this little boy and teaches him all kinds of inappropriate stuff.  But the one thing that this little boy had in common with my little one, is when the little boy was nervous, AS would have him put the sunglasses on, and he would be “invisible”.  Well, Lex does it a bit differently.  When she’s doing something she’s not supposed to, or she’s where she shouldn’t be – you can walk into that room where she’s at, and she closes her eyes.  most of the time she doesn’t cover them as she’s doing in the picture above, but she’ll just sit/stand there – eyes closed tight with an “ i should be in trouble, but you can’t see me to get me in trouble” type smile that stretches the entire width of her face.  she’ll eventually peek to see if you’re gone, but goes right back to eyes closed when she still sees you.  I kind of pains me to see that she’s already growing out of this behavior (not because she’s no longer being naughty…but she’s figuring out that she still gets in trouble for wrong doing, whether her eyes are closed or not), but because that this cute innocent stuff can only be cute for so long…then they learn consequences for their actions, and some of the cute stuff disappears.  oh, to let them get away with everything and be cute for the rest of their lives…can we keep her this small?  oh, nope…that’s right…we have to raise her to the best of our ability to be an honest and contributing member to society, and while doing that, our main focus is to teach her to love God and love her family and friends and all those around her.  wow.  never knew this parenting stuff would be so hard.  every day i see how i fail…but knowing me, i try and look at the positive, and i also look at how i succeed.  i don’t know how my children will grow up, and what they will contribute to life here…but i will love them as much as i can and teach them to trust, not in themselves, but in their creator, and trust where He leads them.  

Deck Building 5/2/2009

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We finally have the deck on the house! We moved in September 07 and are just now getting the deck on. We kept thinking that Jeremy would just do it, but we put it off for so long, we finally decided to hire it out (with a friend of a friend) and Jeremy would assist and that way we could just get it done! We did, Jeremy learned some along the way and now we have a beautiful deck. And of course the kiddos had fun with the whole process too!