Inspiration

My number one inspiration! What's sweeter than a sleeping baby?

My weekend was full of inspirations. Yesterday, Cary and I went to the movie "Fireproof," starring Kirk Cameron (yep, the guy from Growing Pains). It had been recommended by Cary's family and also by the DJs on 107.1. It was a Christian movie about a failing marriage and about having Christ-centered relationships. The movie was a realistic depiction of how a marriage could crumble, and how it takes the Lord to fix it. It really made me think about my marriage, giving thanks to God for continually blessing us and also for showing us how we should work through our problems in the future. I've been thinking about it alot today and I just feel like it really spoke to me. It makes me appreciate Cary alot more... look at all that he does for us....look at our love for each other...watch him as a devoted father...and just love him a little more. Definitely an inspiration and I'd highly recommend it.

Yesterday also was a big day for my sister-in-law, Holly. She had been training for months and ran the Des Moines half-marathon. This was something that had been on Holly's "to-do-before-I-die" list and I'm just so proud of her. She was a true inspiration to me because she set a goal, stuck to it (even when she didn't want to), and accomplished it with flying colors. And, I'd just like to add that she didn't even walk during it. I can barely jog around the block without getting a side cramp, and Holly ran 13 miles. I'm so proud of her and hope that a little bit of her determination will rub off on me!

And my final piece of inspiration was Carter. He continues to amaze me. Its just so fun to watch his little mind work. He has really started to show his curious side lately. He loves the challenge of crawling up the stairs, opening cabinets, unrolling toilet paper rolls, etc. It just seems that everything is so interesting to him and he wants to figure out how to do new things. We took him to the apple orchard on Saturday and it was such a fun family outing. Carter experienced his first whole apple while we were there. Cary took a big bite out of it, and Carter then just licked the meat of it for 30 minutes straight. His little chin was covered in sticky juice, but he loved it. After our trip to the orchard, we drove around the Cumming area and looked at the beautiful houses. I just loved picturing our family living in one of those homes, out in a quiet country neighborhood. I told Cary that I could just picture he and Carter going down to the pond to fish or catch frogs or skip rocks. And the quaint little neighborhoods were so cute. I think that is now my dream place for us to live. I love our house in West Des Moines and I hope to have the rest of our kids there, but I also pray that Carter and his brothers and sisters can grow up with a big yard, a pond and freedom to roam.