2009….what a year….

2009 was quite the whirlwind for our family.  Jason and I experienced some amazing highs and some challenging lows.  As a result, we are both sensing the Lord leading us to be more intentional in just about every area of life….faith, family, friends, finances and our home (it doesn’t start with an f but I was stumped!).

Here is how we spent our past year….

JANUARY:

We spent New Year’s Day with friends, bowling…quite fun!

Our church officially changed its name to Lifepoint Church. This has been an amazing year at our church.  We launched a second campus,

moved to three services, and are sending out teams to Thailand and Belgium in the next year.  We are so blessed to see God moving in a real, tangible way!

FEBRUARY:

We launched our Stewart Family Nights…all centered around a theme and a devotional.  I love these nights, but they are a lot of work! So worth it though.

I am looking forward to picking up the pace again this year.

We started with Colors night..

and had Backwards Night. We started with dessert and ate under the table.  Kids loved it!

Lauren, my niece, had her birthday party at a rock climbing place and Parker and Emery gave it a whirl.  Emery loved it!

AFRICA…..how you changed my life!  Jason and I spent 10 days away from our family on a mission trip to Africa.  It was amazing,

heartbreaking, life changing and all the things you think it would be.  You can read about our journey here.

MARCH:

The house was painted while we were in Africa and was starting to feel more homey.

The girls also started a new soccer season, which was great!

We celebrated Bradley’s 3rd Birthday at our home!! We had a golf party and it was a blast!

We also went to Knoxville and spent some time on the girls’ Spring Break with LuLu. We went to WonderWorks and had a great time!

We also went to The Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga with our dear friends, The Hales.

APRIL:

In April, we took a girls trip to Atlanta for the weekend to celebrate Emery’s 6th Birthday.

Our big outing was to the American Girl Store and Bistro.

We ate at the bistro and added a cake to celebrate!

We shopped our hearts out in the AG store….

We also celebrated Easter with some fun activities to highlight the Resurrection…

MAY:

We honored Emery’s actual birthday with a date with Daddy.

She loves going out one on one and this was no exception..

We also ended the school year with Emery’s Kindergarten Graduation. Where does the time go?

The kids also planted a garden with Poppy.  That garden was very plentiful…

The kids were also in a production at church and Bradley made his debut.

He wore his sunglasses the whole time and came very close to stripping off all his clothes…those preacher’s kids…

Parker had her first speaking part in the History Fair at school. She did great!

Jason and I also started P90x and managed to complete most of it…until the addition started.  It worked for us!

JUNE:

Emery had her dance recital and performed in two dances..loved it!

She also was on the praise team for VBS at church…

But, by far the biggest thing we did this month was start an 1100 square feet addition to our home.

Two trees had to come down and my kids loved watching the initial progress…

Ready to pitch in.

JULY:

This month, we had a lot of fun, enjoying summer.

The kids, Mom and I went to Mississippi to see my family. This was a great trip and I totally

had a moment where I realized my kids are getting older and somewhat easier to travel with!

We also potty trained t his summer and it was BRUTAL. PLAIN BRUTAL.

The kids on my aunt’s farm.  They had a blast on this trip.

We also had Kid’s Camp.  We invited our good friend, Callie Grace, to come stay with us and attend.

She did and it was AWESOME!

Lastly, the girls started 1st grade and 2nd grade!!

AUGUST:

We had a safari family night at Rainforest Cafe. This was a fun night out. We were needing a break from

construction and this did the trick!

Bradley also started back to Mother’s Day Out two days a week! He loves it!

We bricked the addition and got many a questioning looks when it looked like this…

SEPTEMBER:

Then, we painted the brick…Lafonda Sagebrush was the color and 31 gallons later…

the house looked like this…

Jason took a much needed Annual Golf Trip and while he was away, my dad

and I landscaped the majority of the house…

That was an exhausting 3 days!!

But, worth it…

OCTOBER:

The kids had two weeks of Fall Break and on the second week, we went to DISNEY WORLD!!!

6 days at Disney World.  We had a great time, but wow, not the best idea on our parts during the middle of construction.

But, the kids did amazing and we will cherish that trip always.

We went with the Hales and we love traveling with them. Our 6 kids did SO WELL and I love “doing life” with them!

We came home and hit it hard on the addition and were finally able to move in!!!

It looks so different now! I will post new pictures soon!

Having our own bathroom, closet and a master bedroom again, can not be put into words! It is so sweet and I feel so

blessed and thankful…

NOVEMBER:

We spent a lot of time finishing up a lot of details of the addition.  We still had a lot of painting!

But, for Thanksgiving, we went to Orange Beach, AL for several days to be with my parents and sister.

We had a great time, fabulous weather and of course, lots of shopping!

DECEMBER:

We finished up a lot of work this month and are very close to having all the details done!

We celebrated Parker’s 8th Birthday!

Here she is on her day with a new bible, a fish and some flowers! She had a sleepover with her BFF’s and a joint party with a friend at

a bounce place.  She is growing into such a sweet girl..

Bradley was a Wise Man in the MDO Christmas play.

He did so good.

Lastly, we celebrated with all of our family for Christmas.

(My camera memory card was placed in emery’s new cam, which was left at Jason’s aunts…pics to come)

This has been an incredible year…high highs and tough lows.

Looking back, I am so thankful for this life I lead, the God I serve, the man I married, the children I get to raise, the church we call home,

the family that love us so faithfully, the friends who support us and the school that teaches our kids that Jesus is enough.

My prayer is that I am found more faithful, more loving, more patient, more giving and more in awe of Jesus in 2010….

Blessings.