Miracle

So, if you haven't already seen this kid you HAVE to watch this video. This is a five year old little boy that has memorized Herb Brooks' pre-game speech from the famous 'miracle on ice' game from the 1980 Olympics. So, in honor of the Olympics, and in honor of cute kids across America, watch this great video. It is humorous and inspiring and makes me want to say Go USA!

We Love To Sing!

My little boy loves to sing and I happened to catch him when he actually did it when I asked him to. He loves Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and he loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider, except he sings it the Wiggles way, which is Incy Wincy Spider.
Enjoy!

Jackson Boo 26 Months

Its another Jackson update blog.

He is officially 26 months and growing like crazy. Some major milestones recently has been the ditching of the paci and Jackson getting curious about the potty. He definitely understands the potty concept but isn't quite ready to try it out.
What else?
Well, he is just as social as ever (as long as momma is with him) and he loves to play outside. He makes up his own stories along the way and I usually can't keep up with him cause he runs EVERYWHERE! He has tons of energy and usually outlasts us all, mammaw included, which is extremely hard to do! If he isn't wanting to be outside at a park, riding his motorcycle (four wheeler) or running in the grass, than he wants to 'play games'. He loves all things technology. He loves remotes and computers and iphones especially. He knows how to get to the games on my phone and play the few I have. He also loves to play on my parents computer which is a touch screen. He continues to love spanish and has learned even more spanish words this past month...

Blanco- White
Aranas- Spiders
Culebras- Snakes
Cocodrilos- Crocodiles
Ayuda me- Help Me

Here is an example of one of his sentences this week..... 'Help me, Ayuda me. Momma watch out for Aranas, Culebras and Cocodrilos! Sad fact: the only reason we knew what in the world he was talking about was because we saw it on Diego.

Jackson keeps us on our toes, he keeps my heart breaking from how much I love him, and he constantly surprises us. We laugh alot and can't believe he is ours to love and enjoy. Here is a small video that I took from my new iphone video app. I LOVE VIDEO ON MY IPHONE! It is so easy to upload so expect many more videos in the future. Anywho, here is a short clip of him running around.

Amazon Baby!

Its on Amazon baby!!!!!

Hello all. I wanted to throw this out there to the blogging world that my brother-in-laws amazing book, Jungle Sunrise is now on Amazon!! Woo...hoo! It is such an inspiring book with tons of adventure and romance. You really won't be able to put it down. If you haven't ordered it already, do it today. You won't be disappointed!

Also, he has a contest that he has started so for more info on that follow the link below.

New Contest to Win 2 FREE signed copies of my book, Jungle Sunrise. Follow this link for details:http://www.junglesunrise.com/

Johnny, we are so proud of you. We know this is your dream, and to be watching you live it out is so incredible. We want to support you any way that we can, and hope that there are many books to come!

Gracie Rae's Baby Shower

What an amazing thing to celebrate the arrival of a little creation of God's, especially when that little creation is your precious niece! I can't wait to meet little Gracie Rae, and I can't wait to share in the amazing process of motherhood with my sister. She is going to be such a great mother, and I can't wait to watch it. What a neat time when friends and family gather to celebrate with a new mom. We had a great time celebrating this time in Jess' life! Here are a few pictures from the shower. Sorry for the lack of people, I only really took pics of the details before everyone got there and then my camera was not in my hand the rest of the time. If any of you that were at the shower wouldn't mind sending me a few pics of the crowd that would be great and I will pass those on to Jess. Thanks again for celebrating with us!

Here was Jess' diaper cake, her real cake, and the baby food jar favors filled with bath salts.


These were the flowers that Virginia and my mom did. Aren't they so talented!!!!

These were the petit fours that Jess and I made the night before. I really wanted to monogram the letter G on them, but ended up just doing squiggles cause I realized it was much harder than I thought it would be.


Speaking of Gracie, if you guys haven't heard, my sis has started a blog for her, so make sure you bookmark it
www.gracieraewilliams.blogspot.com

Pizza Party!

Surprise! My great friend, Bonnie decided to surprise Jess and came all the way from Washington DC to be at her baby shower! I know, it was awesome! Anyway, we have had so much fun with her here the past few days. She even got to participate in our Valentines Day Pizza Cook Off. We decided that it was going to be boys vs girls and so Bonnie became part of our team a.k.a.
Team Awesome! I wanted to show you some pictures I took of Bonnie coming through the door surprising Jess. It was great!



And here are some pics from the pizza night. I just want to point out that first of all the boys made five pizzas! If it was based on number of pizzas created then they would have won, however it was not based on that fact. The two things we judged were taste and appearance. I didn't really get pics of the boys' pizzas because they were BORING! The girls team on the other hand had a theme.....The Winter Olympics!!!!

Check out our Olympics inspired creations.

The flag....

USA! USA! USA! USA!

You know what else, they were even GREEK pizzas! Get it Greece...Olympics.....oh my gosh we SO WON!!!!!

Kids Again

What is it about snow that turns 30 YEAR OLDS into kids again?
What is even better is a whole field full of perfect snow. I felt like we were in Colorado or something. It was amazing! I forced Jess to take some maternity pictures (coming soon) and decided we needed some sister shots too. Check out a few of my favs.
What I have realized is that we never just take the normal standing posed picture.
Its always a circus, but its always fun!




I will post pictures of the Yoda Snowman we made soon. You definitely don't want to miss it cause he was awesome!!!!

Its The Big One

So, I'm 30.

When I was younger I thought it would be a little more monumental of a thing than what I feel today. I don't know, maybe it is because I truly have never been more joyful that I really feel as though thirty just slipped up on me while I skipped along this great life I have. You know whats funny, is that I'm sitting here praising God for covering my birthday in beautiful snow and wondering out loud how I could be so blessed.

Whats really funny is that there have been better financial times in my life. I have had less responsibility and craziness. I have even had success where I kinda felt on top of the world, but as I sit here, on the other side of 30 and think about my life, I would not change today for anything. I am blessed not because of whether or not I am going through a trial, and certainly not because of what I possess. I have so much to be thankful for and I have Jesus to thank for that. I do feel joyful, not always happy which is much different. I feel like life though unpredictable and crazy is always going to be unpredictable and crazy, but I finally feel a sense of peace in letting go of these things and giving control to the One who needs to have it. There is so much freedom in finding peace in chaos and putting my trust in Jesus who can never fail me.

I have a fantastic husband who makes me laugh constantly and who looks at life the way I do. I have a beautiful baby boy who melts my heart and who can make me cry with his sweet voice.

'Momma, I wuv you sooooooo much!'

Yes, I am 30, and I am BLESSED.

Crazy Day....Crazy Cool.

So, it was a super crazy day.

To catch you up to speed, we are trying to down size and trade our car in for something else. So, the day started with Joey, Jackson and me hopping in our car and heading to a used car lot in Arlington yesterday morning. Well, you know how there is a slight judgement out there about used car salesmen? Well, it was totally confirmed for us during our little experience. We make it all the way to Arlington, after having called the guy about a specific car before we came. He said, sure I will have the car here and we can meet around 10am. We show up at 10am. No salesman to be found. Come to find out, he took the car to an auction about an hour before we were suppose to meet with him. What the..! Seriously?! We drove all the way out there and the car we were interested in isn't even there? Oh...but the sweet people there tried to convince us we needed a car that was close to double what we were wanting to pay. Great. Thanks for nothin'! Back to Flower Mound we went in the same car that we started in.

Well, our car situation actually got a little more interesting a few hours later when Joey called a dealership in Longview that he had done business with before. They said they have a car that is pretty much exactly what we were trying to buy in Arlington, except its actually nicer, and they are interested in buying our car as well! Woo...Hoo! Though we haven't seen the car in person we have seen pictures and decided to go for it. The car transaction is going to take place this Saturday when Joey goes to Longview.

Yea! Car situation down.....now on to a place to live.

So, now that I have updated you on our car situation, I wanted to update you on the video we posted a few days ago. Well, we submitted the video and were just hoping for a comment from Donald Miller, but he went one further and sent an email to Joey today!!! How cool is that. It was a personalized email thanking him for his video and asking for his address so he can send him a free copy of his book. Yeah! I can feel it, they are gonna be friends yet. You just wait and see.

Our Story

If you have read my blog you may have remembered me mentioning the book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. Well, since Joey cyber stalks Donald Miller on Twitter, he knew immediately that he wanted to participate when he saw this challenge on his website.

The funny thing was that we had already discussed this story together weeks earlier and had already planned it and have been working out to prepare. This video was just perfect time to put our vision on record. No going back now!

If we are going to be really honest, there were really a couple reasons we created this video....
First, we really wanted to win the 1000.00 prize money to give to the Dale House in Colorado.
Second, we wanted to have this adventure creatively documented for us to keep
and,
Thirdly, and more far-fetched, Joey and Johnny just KNOW that if Donald Miller (Don, as Joey calls him) could just hang out with them for like one hour they would all be great friends, so they are inviting him on this adventure with us
So, with these things in mind, Jess, Johnny, Joey and I became film producers overnight. We had Johnny's old camera, a black backdrop, and a light.
I guess all that is left to say is....ROLL TAPE!

A Fourteener! from Jonathan Williams on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for more information if you would like to be apart of this story!

Go Buy Jungle Sunrise!!!!

Johnny's book is now available to order. He is such a talented and amazing writer and it really shows in his debut novel,
Jungle Sunrise! It really is filled with action, suspense, drama, romance, all the yummy stuff that makes for a great fiction novel! Please get a copy and get one for a friend because you will NOT be disapointed! We are trying our hardest for this book to make the New York Times Bestseller's list because first of all it will REALLY help Johnny, but more importantly, because it deserves to be there. It really is a wonderful book! The website that you can now order from is called www.junglesunrise.com
You can just click HERE if you want to purchase it now.

Johnny, we are soooooo proud of you, and are so excited to help support you in this amazing adventure!!!!!
Below is what you can read on the website about the book and about Johnny. I thought I would post it here for anyone interested in reading more about this amazing story and this amazing author!

Please Read

Amazing story in the New York Times about Matt Chandler, the pastor of The Village church where Joey and I attend. It really is amazing to watch this self-proclaimed former Agnostic pouring out love for Jesus during the midst of stage 3 brain cancer. This article really gives some details into what happened and how this amazing family is coping. Please read it and pray for continued peace for Matt, his wife and three young children.

Click here to read the article.