Long Time No Post

Hello everyone!

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to post an update. I was struggling with issues with my depression again. Praise the Lord that I have made it through that battle. I am so thankful to my entire family. They really love on me and support me. I have the best family ever! To those of you who called and encouraged me to get out of bed, thank you. I may not have done it, but I know that is what helps!!!

David is almost done with kindergarten. He only has 14 days of school left. I cannot believe that!!! He is excited for the summer, and he is looking forward to being a first grader next year. He has grown by leaps and bounds in every area of his life this school year. He has made a lot of good friends at school and church. Ed and I have made a lot of good friends as well through our small group at church. God has blessed us with AWESOME leadership at our church who have written the vision and made it clear so we can run with it! I have also made good friends with several of the moms of other kids in David's class.

Faribault is finally beginning to feel like home. We have been here 10 months now. It will be a year mid-July. I know in my head that moving is always a big transition, but I am never really mentally or emotionally prepared for it. Moving is an even bigger transition when you are moving into a completely new community where you need to establish yourself again. We live at least an hour away from all of our friends in the Twin Cities area. With gas prices as high as they are, it is simply not feasible to visit people often. I desperately needed to make friends, and God hooked us up with a small group. Our cell group leaders live in our neighborhood. God is SO GOOD!

We will be attending David's first musical performance tomorrow. His class and another one of the kindergarten classes will be singing for us tomorrow at 2:15 pm. He has been counting down for the concert for the past week and a half.

Many blessings to you and yours!

Love, The Gulland Family

Finally, an update!

The Gulland Family is doing well in our new home. If you need our new mailing address, please email me at prvbs31chick@yahoo.com.

David loves school, and he is reading at almost a second grade level. His teacher has him in an Accelerated Reading Program which he enjoys and is doing wonderfully in. We will be getting his second trimester report card next Friday. His first report card was fantastic, and we expect nothing less this time around. He really enjoys school, and we heard nothing but great comments about him at his conference.

We were very proud parents and thankful to God that He has given us wisdom in raising David. Is David perfect? Of course not because none of us are (This may be a big revelation for some of you. I know it was for me.)! David has things that he can work on. The biggest one being listening and obeying the first time. This is probably more at home than at school. As I think about this, I think about how I still need to work on listening and obeying God the first time he tells me to do something. As I model this behavior, I know that David will continue to improve. I was reading a parenting book this morning, and it said that a lot of parenting is caught not taught. SO TRUE! How many of you remember hearing, "Do as I say, not as I do." I sure do. I am determined to live before David the way that I want him to live.

Ed is enjoying his work with Rust Consulting. He is a project manager. He has moved to a different team which has allowed him to focus on using his strengths. I think it is a much better fit for him, and it allows the company to utilize his strengths.

I am enjoying being a work-from-home mom. I love being a Mary Kay consultant and helping women to take time to pamper themselves. It is great too because the priorities that the company teaches (based on Mary Kay Ash's life priorities): God first, family second, and career third are priorities that I want to live by life by. The company is a great fit for me, and I feel like I finally found something that I love doing (besides being a wife and mom which aren't paying gigs!) :-)

David turned six on Tuesday, February 26th. Can you believe it? We celebrated by taking him and three of his friends from school to the local bowling alley. A fun time was had by all. We will be having a larger celebration with more of his friends from school and church along with some extended family on March 8th. I will post pictures of both events as soon as I can.

Finally, I am on Facebook now, so come and check me out. It has been a great way for me to reconnect with people from high school and college. It has also been a wonderful tool for me staying in touch with friends from our church in Brooklyn Park and with my Mary Kay friends from other units.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

This morning David told me he had a headache. I asked him, "Do you want some medicine?" He said, "No, I know that God can heal my headache."

God used David this morning to remind me that He is the Great Physician. I am not saying that He can't use medicine because I know that God does use medicine to help people get healthy. It just amazed me that David chose to use his faith in God as his healer instead of medicine. I know that I don't always model that, so I was excited to see that the Bible stories we have been reading to him and the teaching he has received in his classes at church have had such an impact on him.

I Wish I Knew How to Use Our Video Camera

Hey everyone!

I wish I knew how to use our video camera and also how to post video to my blog. It was SO FUNNY! Michael, the youngest boy that I nanny, slept over last night. Him and David each found one of David's Hawkeyes' cheering toys (better known as pom-poms but it doesn't sound too manly). Both Michael and David were shaking their toys and saying "Go, Hawkeyes, Go!" They said this repeatedly. Papa Jimmy would have been so proud that these two Minnesotans were cheering for the Hawkeyes instead of the Gophers!!!

Love to you all!

Me & My Boy

Can you believe how big David has gotten? He currently weighs in at 42 pounds and is over 3 1/2 feet tall. I cannot believe how quickly he is growing not only physically, but also emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.

My favorite thing that he says right now is when he doesn't want me to do something he says, "Mom, if you do _____ I am not going to appreciate it."

His favorite things to do right now are read, draw (he is quite the artist), and do math problems. I got him a math workbook that he is absolutely LOVING! He actually tells me that he wants to work on his school work. That is SO MUCH FUN FOR ME!!!

My friend, Sommer, and I just took her boy, A.J., David, and Michael (the youngest boy I nanny for) to the Macy's display on the 8th floor of Mary Poppins. It was really quite enjoyable. It would have been even more fun if the boys would have let me read the captions to them! Afterwards, we met Ed at one of the food courts and went out for lunch. We had a really good time! Thanks Sommer and A.J. for a great day!

Now we are back home. Michael is napping, and David is playing quietly in his room. I really should be doing the dishes, but blogging sounded like so much more fun!!! :-) Plus, I don't want to wake up Michael! ;-)

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Future Artist?

What do you think of our Picasso? That is really the only artist's name that I know, so if you think that his drawings reflect another artist's style than you will have to leave that in the comments.

I hope that this note finds you all doing well. Our family is doing the countdown until Ed's last class for his MBA. On November 30th, he will finish his last "Strategic Management" class. Then all he needs to complete is his two Capstone class sessions in January. Yahoo!!!

David has been working on his writing, phonics, reading, and math. He loves doing addition and subtraction. Crazy, huh? He is working on worksheets that according to the developers of the workbook are for first grade. "WOW" is all I have to say! I am constantly amazed at how much he loves to learn. We are doing everything in our power to nurture this love, so he will continually love to learn and take on new challenges. I have seen way too many kids who settle on doing the easy work and never push themselves to their potential. I want David to be all that God created him to be.

I have been keeping a VERY FULL schedule! I had all kinds of plans for getting things done today, but right now I am going to give myself a break and lay down with a good book. :-) I have been trying to do one Mary Kay pampering session a week. It hasn't worked out to be that, but I will continue to try because I love the products and love the girl time!!! I also have been working full-time as a nanny to three kids: Matthew (7), Mary Kate (5), and Michael (3). They are completely adorable and full of love! Our entire family absolutely adores them and loves spending time with them. I also work once a week with the Covenant Kids Ministry at our church. Finally, I am adding to my plate watching my a friend's two kids occassionally. We are trading off time, so she will watch David for me some time without costing me anything. I like that deal!!! :-)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's home with her (Lois), her husband (Roger), Roger's son (Dan), Dan's wife (Amber), and their daughter (Mary). We had GREAT food and some AWESOME weather! The kids and I played kickball and other variations of the game outside for quite some time yesterday. I cannot seem to turn off my love and desire to play with kids even when I have the day off! :-)

We will be going to my father-in-law's (Jim) next weekend. I am not sure if we are celebrating Christmas with him then or not. We will be spending the Christmas holiday with my family in Mississippi. I am BEYOND EXCITED!!! It has been seven months since I have been down there, so the trip is well past due. I am looking forward to seeing my sister, Dawn, my brother, Travis, and my niece and nephew, Addison and Alex. I cannot wait to spend time with everyone!!! It is going to be pretty low-key, so that is another bonus! We will have some good relaxing family time (I am sure we will go to a movie or two!). It will be nice for our family (me, David, and Ed) to just have some solid quality time together as well. Ed is planning on having all of his projects for his Capstone class wrapped up, so it will be like he is already done with school even though he will technically have two more classes in January.

Please let me know what is going on with all of you. I am looking forward to hearing what everyone did for Thanksgiving and how they plan on spending and enjoying this Christmas season. I am hoping to take down all of our fall decorations today and get our Christmas decorations up. David is excited for that, and I am looking forward to listening to Christmas music!!! Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season! Don't let yourself get SO BUSY that you forget why we celebrate this holiday!