A glorious day

Sunday was an absolutely glorious day!

The kids and I woke up for church. Somehow BOTH kids got completely ready for church without any problem and we were ON TIME! (it is NOT often that we get to church before the first song starts, but we did yesterday!) Service was wonderful. I always love worship, we are blessed with a passionate worship team that sings songs I love. While they had their technical difficulties yesterday they were still such a blessing to the body. And message was one that really resonated with my soul. But the best part? Kind words. I was complimented (which does not happen often in my world) and one dear woman commented on how wonderful my children were during service (an amazing feat in itself!), that truly warmed my heart.

After church I decided we needed to go do something fun and outdoors since I had spent so much time on the computer and working Saturday. So we headed down to Pismo to go to the Monarch Preserve. The day was in the 70s, bright and sunny. Very beautiful, but a bit odd for the middle of January!

Of course I took my camera, because that is just me, and I am so pleased with the cool pictures we got!

Catching those FAST flying butterflies with a camera was very hard, but here are a few cool shots. (Remember, you can always click on the pictures to make them bigger!)

Nat and Audrey were so sweet together.

Here they are looking up at the butterflies and Audrey is helping Nat stand steady while he looks up.

The walk was a bit long for Nat. I could have taken his chair, but instead I wanted him to get some exercise so we just took it slow. Audrey had been running ahead with Kaia, but then she circled back to walk with her brother. For kids that fight like cats and dogs it was nice to see her caring about her brother. Then when we were taking pictures Audrey was upset about the sun in her face and Nat was comforting her then.

This picture was a labor of art for Lorena to set up for me, but I like it :) She had to get the kids (and one is heavy and has a hard time climbing!) onto these logs, while I waited on the bridge to get the great angle.

Best buds. So sweet.

It has been a long time since the girls have gotten to hang out together outside of school and it was fun to see them together today.

Everyone was into taking pictures today... well everyone but Lorena, but she hates it when I put shots of her on the blog :)

And this was just cool.

When I got home and started editing the pictures I remembered that Lorena and Kaia went with us last year too and wanted to see how much the kids had changed in a year, so I went digging back to find the shots from last year.

Much better attitudes this year from the looks on their faces. And Nat has really filled out in a good way. Last year was so hard to get the weight to stick on him! And I think it is really funny that Audrey has the same log sleeve shirt on! Cute comparing.

But then I saw this.

And that is really cute!

 I hope that they stay sweet friends for years to come!

After we got home the kids did chores to earn TV time and chilled together. It was a quiet evening where they played in the living room watching TV on the Wii and I got to edit pictures and talk to a dear friend who is miles away on line. The kids even fixed themselves dinner! (yes, for one it was left over pizza I had made and for the other it was blueberries, string cheese and a banana, but they did it themselves and it was sweet!) As I sat out in my front yard listening to the ocean crash and watching the beautiful sunset I realized that my children had not fought once during the day, we did what needed done and I was relaxed and happy at the end of the day. And things like that make every moment it on the long journey worth it!