Living an Intentional Life
Tatum was chosen to be SOW this week!
Here’s what she wrote about herself and the pics she wanted to include
True! Reading!
Cute bumby:
We were supposed to write something for her.
Tatum, you and Woody are so cute together. Another side of you is the nurturing side with your pets.
Hay Happens Meetings. We have them every Sunday. Well, during our retreat to Strawberry, we worked on our revised Mission Statement for our family. Stay tuned for our revised version.
This meeting, I had us answer some questions to “prime the pump” in our brains.
Here we go!
First, let’s define what it is:
You want to be able to answer these questions:
Now, the questions! Ready!?
Here are mine:
Still work on mine!
Daddy was next:
And then the TOT! I love her answers.
Side 1:
Jesus. Her passion is Jesus. (these answers came from her heart…not from me..) On number 3 she said kindness and then made a fun joke about God looking down talking in an accent…She is so fun with her writing!
side 2:
I agree; she has the gift of discernment. We’ll see how her mission statement turns out.
Stay tuned for more later!
This inspired her to make a goal for her A/R tests. She stayed up late and made these goals on the white board:
I like that she rewards herself AFTER she accomplishes her goal. YES!
Part of the GRIT (6 G’s of our Mission Statement) of the Hays. Smile.
This is a typical scenario. Tatum will be struck with some type of guilt and she’ll reveal something to me which she was holding in.
One particular evening, she whispered to me something she had done and that it was haunting her (from that day). I said, “Not now, honey; we’ll discuss later.” She then wrote it on a post it and I knew we had to deal with it immediately.
She shared the story of the scenario and what she was guilty of. It was a pivotal moment in her life. I knew we needed to talk to Mrs. Denmark also; she needed to reveal it to her next.
Tatum was frightened; almost paralyzed, but I remarked that if she didn’t get it off her chest, it would haunt her forever. She kept saying, “It wasn’t worth it! I can’t live with myself!!” Thank goodness. Thank you, Jesus. I love her heart. I never punished her, but instead told her I was proud of how she handled it and how bold she was to be up front. The consequences were her haunting guilt and the natural consequence from the sin.
Tatum doesn’t do well if she has done something wrong; she beats herself beyond what is healthy sometimes. One thing is that she can’t keep things inside, and I’m the first one she tells…..always. Thank you that she trusts me and that she confides in me. I never want to shame her or make her feel terrible for confiding in me (that has to trump the punishment). The consequence is usually her conscience haunting her and then the natural consequence of what she did. Also, she always must make it right with God first and then if there is another party, them as well. Good lessons all around, and thank goodness for them being made as she is young and in our home.
See this smile? She is full of life! She is full of truth! She is full of HIM. For that, I can only be grateful. Yes, she will sin, fall, falter, and maybe stay there for a bit. BUT, I do see the LIGHT in her. Keep being YOU, my lovebug.
Tatum and Milania have playdates almost weekly. Coopy awaits.
Woody awaits….amidst the coconut. Hello pretty bird!
She is a great new friend for Tatum as they share so much in common. I wanted to make a special time for them, so I baked some sugar cookies and pulled out my can of frosting which I had bought (a year ago…*wince*)
Much to my chagrin, it was not so “whipped and creamy” as the packaging noted. Nope. It turned yellow and flat. YEW! So..I had to think fast. Pinterest to the rescue, I found a quick recipe including butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. BOOM!
Then, I had them pick out some colors and lick the beaters. Cmon! How can it get better?
Green, purple and pink! Piping bags, setup up complete.
They have a blast decorating. No matter on HOW MUCH frosting, right?
Just pile it on there.. with sprinkles of course!
And VOILA!
Now, how do they taste?
Heavenly. See you soon!
A goody bag to take home:
Tatum loves to play teacher. However, to play teacher, you need to be a good student right?
Well, the white board is a place where she likes to animate the learning.
What do you think she’s teaching here? She loves to promote FAMILY. Smiles.
With family, comes responsibility, and she is learning this. She is also learning that sometimes you have to put in extra effort to learn. It’s H.A.R.D as she says! Yes! Anything worthy in life is hard! But, us Hays, work hard and play hard, right!?
So we work on our math everyday, and she is setting up her AR goals.
And we keep track daily of her goals; it all pays off!
She wants to improve in school! She is even asking for help now, and I love her efforts. We celebrate this!
Valentine’s Day, yes, is over-rated; however, we can still celebrate LOVE! I don’t think we need a day to shower our loves with love; it should be a DAILY thing, right!?
First, our small group has adopted GIGI’s Foster Care home (A home for about 8-10 girls).
I delivered this to them in the am: (baskets and goodies for the girls and staff)
Today, we also did a bit to celebrate. ALSO, the American Heritage gals did a little bake sale to raise money.
First, I love surprising the TOT and my HHH.
and for lunch for the TOT
Tatum and I had an evening together, so I surprised her with a little basket too. Journals, pens, a mask for sleeping, and some sour watermelon!
We had a fun time celebrating.
That day, the girls (AHG) had a bake sales, and Tatum was all ready to sell!
And that they did!
HOW CUTE! They made about $350! So proud of them.
Then the next night, Daddy HHH surprised us with some fun gifts as I made a fun scallopy dinner!
We love to spoil each other.
And for me! Love my honey. Not sure if I agree with this checklist, but he does and that what matters! SMILE.
Love celebrating LOVE!
Our dear friends Susan and Jason (I’ve known Susan for 20 or more years!) have a cabin (which they call the Golden Elk) in Strawberry which is right outside of Pine. They now use it as an Air B n B. She approached me and asked if we’d like to use it! What an opportunity, so we jumped on it! Also, it was a way us Hays could get away and spend some time “retreating.”
My plan was for us to spend some time on our Mission Statement. We pared it down to: 6G, but we really need to update the wording. Plus, I hoped that we could also work on our individual mission statements. So I put together a packet: (cuz that’s what I do!)
Packed us up….and we were off! The packing was not super easy though because I wanted to bring up our own food since there really aren’t places to eat around Pine or Strawberry. Our frig went into these boxes.
And Tot…she was all ready (with Woody!) (sorry Coopy!)
Daddy packed up the car and …..Woody is ready!
Daddy mapped it out..only 93 miles CHECK!…and WE ARE OFF!
Stopped in Payson for a lunch/ice cream etc..(ya know our usual!) and BOOM! We are there. Pine and then if you blink you’ll drive right through Strawberry. Arrived! How cute is the Golden Elk.
When we got in…HOLY ELK! It was ALL elk decorated.
Little Elk everything.
Even the GAME ROOM!..well, wait…they had this life sized DREAM for us English teachers.
and a sand game.
A little walk outside to welcome ourselves to the neighborhood (so beautiful on the narrow hilly drive and cabins were spread out; far apart)
Tot and I watched a quick show on the TV; well, what the heck is on? Nothing.
When we returned, Doug cooked us up some pork loin. (and I noticed our view!)
I enjoyed using the kitchen and whipping up some sweet potato fries and salads.
While Tot played at the table; Is there a bird on my head?
Ok… We are ready! The Qwirkle must come to an end. Daddy was winning too. Sad face.
Tot got the whole downstairs so she slept in both rooms because why just have one room?
We took a drive down to Fossil Point to do a hike the next morning. ELK!
Everywhere! Hey buddy!
While driving, we noticed a little breeze. Or maybe I should say major wind because the hike we intended to meander became a big frosty endeavor. Did I say faaaaaarrrreeeezing? For the Love of GOD, can we just take the picture already!?
We got to see the “token snow” and the “token view” and that was jjjjjjjjuuuuuusssstttt enough. BRRRR!
TADA! K. I’m good.
Coffee! Here we come! The little windmill place had a line, so we waited in the little breeze.
But how cute is this place?
We decided to walk around Pine to all the cute little shops from antiques to teepees. Yes, SRSLY.
First stop: Lavender Farm. Very fragrant. What’s that buzzing noise, Daddy?
Antique stores; we basically just bought taffy. Oh, look…
Later we just found some souvenir/trinkets from good ol’ AZ!
Our last night was leftovers and silly conversation. We decided we all needed a ONE minute vent of some negative and then the REST? Gratitude.
Tatum got a little goodie for being so delightful.
We do LOVE you! And we love Strawberry! Thank you, Susan and Jason!
