Malachi's 3rd birthday party!

This is the first year that Malachi was and is totally aware what this whole birthday thing is about!  He saw that Annabella got to have a birthday party with a cake and friends..and he was all up on that idea!!!!  He couldn't wait for the day to come!  His only request....a green train cake!  :)

 Daddy came on his lunch break to bring the little munchkins to the party!  Ahhh, aren't they just the cutest little bunch!!

 Malachi was a little shy at first!  He saw all the people and decided he needed some lovin!  :)

 Yayy! 

Annabella's favorite little girls!  I'm pretty sure she had just as much fun if not more fun than Malachi! 

Malachi was too concerned trying to steal the goodie bags...forgot the presents, this is where it's at!!!! :)

Ezekiel stuffing his face with pizza.....  :)

Malachi's green train cake! :)  I mean it's no Martha Stewart cover page, but I think I did alright!  :)

Some of the beautiful mommies at his party!  I love you ladies! 

And there's the handsome birthday boy looking longingly at his cake!   The party had just started and everyone was playing on playground and I couldn't find Malachi....and here he was!!!! :)

Happy birthday my handsome prince!!!!!!!

One AMAZING mother, grandmother, GREAT grandmother and friend!!!

So we celebrated the birthday of Charlie's grandmother's 89th birthday on Saturday night, and even though shes not my grandma "technically"...she totally is!!!! :)

I have had the amazing privilege of getting to know her and soak up her godly wisdom  every time I am with her.  She is amazing in every way..and I know she would tell you that it is ALL God...which of course is true, but I can only pray that someday I will have that much Jesus in me too!!!!  Her joy and peace is truly contagious and I can't help leaving feeling like the presence of the Lord is in my back pocket when I leave!!!  :)  I guess all I'm saying is...I am sooo ridiculously blessed that I get to have her in my life!!!!  I love you Gramma Brooke!!!!

Now for some pictures of silliness on her special day

The birthday girl!!!  :)

Sneaking some pie I see!  :)

nothing like some good old fashioned fun with family!

 And there's our little Ezekiel keeping himself entertained through the celebration

 And then there's my personal favorite...Nana and Malachi tickle session!!! :)

Happy birthday Gramma!!!

My little cowgirl

So we arrived at Annabella's friends cowgirl party about 20 minutes early! I know, I know..crazzzyy!  So with this precious time I thought, what the hey... lets just drive on over to this here forest on the side of the road and take some pictures!  Yes i know, it's a problem! :)

I love her.  :)

I cannot believe he's THREE!!!!

Ok..Ok..I'm totally lying! I SO can believe he's three! haha  In fact, I can't believe he's ONLY 3!  Now, its not because he acts like he's 10 or anything...but mainly cause I felt like he's been here forever!  I mean truly, I cannot remember life without Malachi!  

Oh Malachi, where do I begin!  He's one the most amazing,handsome, and mysterious child in the entire world!  He can make you laugh and cry all within the same 2 minutes...it's a gift!  :)  He has more passion than most people ever will in their whole lifetime...and although sometimes it makes me crazy....I absolutely LOVE it!  

Malachi's favorite things:

Movie- Elmo...hands down!  That boy can watch some Elmo..although I'm gonna have to say that once he's discovered Toy Story...it's been a toss up! :)

Music- anything by daddy!  No really....he is a born musician!  I mean, it's in his genes! :) Him and Charlie will just be in the bedroom recording music and Malachi will just sit and listen to it over and over and over again!  

Shirt- I know, I know..weird, but it has to be said!  He LOVES..and I'm talking it has become a problem haha, with his red guitar shirt.  Now it's not just any red shirt with a giant guitar on it....it has a special little button you press  on the bottom of the shirt and it plays a rocking guitar solo!  I know what your thinking...where can I snatch me one of those????  :)  Well, thats just the thing, I have no idea where it came from! haha.  I'm pretty sure Jesus just plopped that thing right in his drawer knowing it would make his day!!!!  :)

Food- Thats hard to say since he's the most stubborn picky eater every...but I think that chocolate, ice cream, and rolls are always a safe bet!  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree....I'm just saying.  :)

Thing to do- Going to Chick-Fill-A...although I'm not sure if it's ONLY his favorite thing becuase that's the only place we go,haha; so he associates Chick-fill-A with the outside world....and will do anything to get out!  :)

He also loves the Prayer House.  I'm talking he crys and crys to go there!  Good job Cheryl!! :) He wants to go and dance! Ahhh..I mean could he get any cuter!!! :)

In conclusion...he's pretty much awesome! :)

He loves to sleep and is not afraid to show his feminine side while snoozin!  haha :)

He loves his PJ's...but has his own special way of wearing them! :)

And of course, he loves cupcakes...I'm not sure what that face is about...although I'm pretty sure this wasn't his first one for the day, so the sugar could be definitely going to his head!  :)

And last but certainly NOT least....he's the most handsome boy ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :)

Oh Malachi........

I love your laugh....

I love your smile....

I love the way you talk with some sort of country accent and stutter when you get excited

I LOVE the way you dance and worship Jesus

I love the way you pray

I love the way you love to read and HAVE to point to every single object on the page and figure out what it does

I love the way you play house with Annabella and even let her dress you up in tutus and bows

I love you that you don't know any better and you think ALL boys dress in tutus and bows! haha

I love the way you LOVE to be tickled more than anything in the whole world...mainly by daddy!

I love the way you run....very funny indeed!  :)

I love EVERYTHING about you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, sometimes you make me pull my hair out by the handfuls; but you are wonderful in every way!  You make every one smile...you make laugh funnier, and make the days sweeter....and when all else fails..you make EVERYTHING more eventful!  :)  

I cannot WAIT to see ALL that God has in store for you little man!  Oh, I know it's gonna be SOO GOOD!!!  I just can't wait!  It's like a story book and I just soooo wanna skip to the last chapters cause I know it's gonna be soooo awesome but I just have to keep reading all the back round for now!  :)  God had made you with something special in mind and he's just waiting for the perfect moment to pour it out over you!  Jesus is absolutely  crazzzyyyy about you and so are we!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

Jesus is turning you into a  passionate, God fearing, Jesus loving, Holy Spirit filled, Word of God loving, man of God; and I LOVE watching it happen!!!  

I LOVE YOU MALACHI WILLIAM COCHRAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Happy birthday to my amazing son.  

My house! :)

So..on the one hand these pictures truly don't give it justice how much and how quickly my children can destroy my house.  On the other hand, I'd like to think that it doesn't always look this way!  I'm not totally sure why I'm posting these...I guess mainly so one day I can look back and think..."Ohhh, it all makes since now...THATS why I was crazy!!!" :)

Annabella's room....after about 3-5 minutes of  "playtime"!  

Oh wow...this is a good picture!  This is GREAT to what it normally looks like! haha  BUT...what you might be missing is ALL the popcorn kernels covering the floor...apparently the lighting covers them up!  Hey, I'll live with that!  :)

Pizza.....apparently it was daddys night with the kids!  :)  And another bright picture to hide the dirt covering the floor,the jam smeared walls, and food covering the counter!  Score to bright lights!!  :)

Yup...popcorn in here too!   They literally poured out two bags of popcorn through out the whole house!  I guess they wanted to be able to come back and nibble through out the day....and that's just what they did!!

Now, don't be fooled..this is a verryy verryy mild day.  But I just figured that I would post the pictures from just a "normal day" because when i look at these someday........well, some things I just don't want to remember!!  haha  :)    

Silly moments from some crazy kids!

So this is where I found them! Huddled over a bowl of yellow rice. Apparently Malachi got the leftovers out of the fridge and then i found them stuffing there faces! I promise I don't starve them! haha

Malachi giving Ezekiel his fair share of the food! :)

Oh Malachi....hahaha :)

So on another note....I leave to go in another room for all of 5 seconds and this is where I find my little Ezekiel

So this may just look like a sweet little innocent boy that climbed onto a dining room table....but don't be fooled!! You see that little plant a couple of inches away from him.....

He was taking handfuls of the dirt and then throwing it across the room...how clever! haha

Oh and one last thing to end on...

Annabella dressed us ALL up today!!! :)
Malachi-"Tinkerbell"
Annabella-"the ladybug princess"
Mommy-"ballerina princess"
No worries, getting Malachi some boy dress up clothes is the NEXT thing on the to do list! :)

The Cost of My Longings

Annabella comes running into the living room full of excitement and exclaims, "Oh mama, I just CANT WAIT for us all to die so we can go to heaven!!!" hmm..now on one hand I TOTALLY love her enthusiasm about heaven...on the other, she thinks being hit by a car is a one way ticket to the best place in the world! How do I explain to a 4 year old that yes, heaven IS AMAZING...but for now she is called to be here with mommy! Sigh...the joy of mommyhood and raising a Jesus lover! :)

Raising children can be tough...but raising Jesus loving, God fearing, generation changing passionate lovers of Jesus.....now that's a WHOLE other story!!!

If done the way Christ indended I venture to say that this is one of the most amazing and sacrificial callings a person could possibly have - to raise the next generation to be LOVERS of the King. Oh how I pray every day that I will not screw it up. But then again I am confident in His supernatural grace that continues to pour out despite of my shortcomings as a friend, a wife, and a mom.

Oh can you just imagine if we as mommies didn't push aside our callings as mothers and always be hoping for when we can finally get to do what WE want to do (jobs, school, careers, hobbies, ministries, just a girls night out). What if we REALLY did see this as the most amazing opportunity of our life time!!! Sometimes I hear myself say and others as well, "Oh but I deserve a little 'me' time.....I NEED this.... I can't just be a wife and a mother all the time, I need something of my own!"

Hmm...I don't know about you but that just doesn't seem to settle right with me. Now I'm not saying that God doesn't have callings on our lives or that he doesn't want us to go out and fellowship with our girls...but what I am saying is this - we were NEVER meant to find our identity in ANYTHING but Jesus Himself! Not a job, not a ministry, not even our husband or children. So when people say, "I'm not just a mom and a wife..I'm more than that." I will say, THAT'S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT...you're a DAUGHTER OF THE LIVING GOD!!!! and of course they will say, "Oh I know, I know, but you know what I mean..."

But what do we mean when we say that? Jesus makes it pretty dang clear....He is EVERYTHING...we are to find ALL joy, all peace, all satisfaction in Him and we are to live completely for HIS agenda at all time. We are just pawns in his master chess game!! NO longer living for ourselves...but ONLY for His glory and His purposes.

So....all of that to say, what if His calling for me is to be a mother to my 3 children and a wife to my husband. What if I never did anything "greater" than make dinner, tell the grocery clerk about Jesus, and read "Good Night Moon" at bed time? Would that be enough? What if I found ALL of my joy in Jesus and needed nothing and no one else to satisfy that place? What if we embraced our amazing callings as mothers and didn't try to be something "more"? Wow....what if?????????

All I know is...I want more and more of Jesus. But for my kids....I want them to have TEN FOLD!

So...what will it cost us in this life??? .................Everything! And when it's not costing us everything, shouldn't we begin to question why????

Oh Lord, give me grace to LOVE you, to LOVE my husband, to LOVE my children, and to LOVE everyone around me with a heart that cannot help but love them and a heart that is so passionately consumed with your presence I can't NOT give everything at your feet! Continue to remind me everyday.....YOU ARE EVERYTHING!!!!!

A Saturday worth blogging about

It started with being awoken by my precious 3 year old son at 4:45 am. I'm talking I rolled over and there he was...staring over me...kinda creepy, I know! haha He has a habit of wanting to be everywhere we are..sigh... and he knows he's not normally allowed to sleep in bed with us so he has come up with a little different solution. He comes in, grabs a pillow that we're not using, pulls off our quilt and lays it out for himself and then proceeds to fall asleep on the floor (as close to the bed as possible of course, hehe).

Now with all that being said...some days it just annoys me. Call me mean spirited or cruel; but fearing having to get out of bed and tripping over your kid's head or hearing them tap the side of the bed frame for a good 45 minutes before they can fall alseep in the middle of the night, makes you kinda sorta wish they would have just stayed in their own! haha

But today was different. I looked over as he fluffed out our nice big red quilt and curled up as close to our bed as possible...and I smiled....big! :) I just love him sooo much and the Lord reminded me at that moment that he will only want to run in our room and cuddle for so many years...and so for the first time I just wished I could wake him up and snuggle his little face off! :) No worries though, I had enough self control and wisdom to know that wouldn't have turned out quite as cute as it sounded! haha

Then for the morning (I mean the REAL morning...I don't consider 4:45 am the morning haha). Well the night before Charlie and I had agreed to get up early and take the kids to Chick-Fill-A for FREE BREAKFAST! Yes, get excited, cause boy we did!!!!!!!!!!! haha Apparently they are offering free breaksfat every saturday through the month of September...I didn't want to say anything beacuse of fear of MORE people knowing about this amazing craze, but now you know! :) We had thoroughly planned it...knowing that people were probably gonna be sleeping outside of that place just waiting to get themselves some yummy breakfast chicken biscuits for FREE, so we had to think strategically! :)

BUT at 6:30 there were no sounds of children, and Lord knows we weren't about to wake them...then 7...7:30...nothing! Ahh, I could hear the Hallelujah choir! :) All of that to say, we lay there in bed for a while just enjoying the moment of nothingness! When they finally did awake we decided that everybody snuggling in mommy and daddy's bed and eating cinnamon rolls sounded WAY better than actually getting clothes on and leaving the house. The next several hours consisted of laying in our bed, tickling, dancing to silly music Charlie would play on his guitar, and laughing!

Sound like a great day so far???!! It gets better!!! :)

After we all pulled ourselves together, Charlie watched the kids so I could go to Hobby Lobby and the Thrift Store!! I know, I know, I too could hardly contain myself! :) Now, just for the record, me and Hobby Lobby have a "thing"...yup, that's right, I'm talking we really like each other!! :) And the thrift store...I mean whats not to like about the thrift store?! So I wandered the aisles looking at wonderful fun things that I had no intention of actually buying, but boy was it fun; and then moseyed into the thrift store asking where there "sale" items were, and ended up with some amazing things I might add! Delightful afternoon, truly delightful!

Then after all that crazy goodness we decided to take our three little monkeyroos to the park for a little picnic. There's nothing like a picnic from Sonic and a park bench to eat your Cheese Coney on! :) A little unorthodox I must admit, but way better than any sandwich-filled picnic basket, I'll tell you that! :)

Our amazing smorgasbord! :)

Ezekiel had finally surrendered after much chasing! hehe

Shes amazing...simply amazing. :)

Ahh, I loveee him!!!

Hands down Ezekiel and Malachi's favorite thing-to be swung around untill when you put them on the ground, they fall over! haha

A little tag with daddy....I wonder who will win? :)

We finally got home and our tummy's were full of french fries and coney dogs; but yet there was still something missing.....OH YES...brownies!!!!!! :) YUMM...and who can eat brownies without a little movie to go with it??? So we popped in "Little House on the Prairie" and we were set! :) I'm telling ya, after watching a few episodes of that it will make you want to go live on a ranch and pull up your own broccoli! :)

Thank you Jesus for beautiful days, amazing children, silly husbands, yummy hot dogs, and delightful entertainment! I go to sleep with my heart full! :)

A little bit of awesomeness! :)

So we went to a little boys first birthday party the other day and we had heard prior that there was going to be some "animals" there. Oh fun I thought...ponies, maybe a baby sheep to pet or something?? haha But no no, they had decided on a little different venue. Pictures are worth thousand words........

Thats right! They had a straight up BOA at their kids 1st birthday party! haha I don't know if they want their kid to be some kind of lion tamer or something, but I'm just saying...that boys parents rock! haha :)

We saw a couple of extra crazy creatures and thought the best thing to do was make a creepy face!

Annabella was rather fond of the mouse though.......not quite sure what to say about that. I guess we won't be letting her help daddy with the traps anymore. jk...maybe... :)

Creepy little lizard....not so much...haha

Malachi was all eyes on that turtle though...and I'm not talking he wanted to take him home and give him a little warm milk and pillow to sleep on either. He was totally on to that turtle! Every time that little turtle came 2 feet from Annabella, he would practically throw himself at her and yell, "NO BELLA...the turtles coming...GET away!!!!!" haha protective much?? :)

All of that to say...kids should have cooler birthday parties more often. I mean whats all this about pony rides and petting zoos anyway....totally over rated!!! hahaha Hats off to you Anne for throwing a great party....I mean, it makes us "normal" moms look pretty lame, but im okay with that! :)