This lovely girl singing is Danika and she is 17 years old. True and Brave used to pretend they were Danika and Chicha, who is Danika’s cousin. Danika and Chicha were always together, so Brave and True would pretend they were them.

Last Wednesday, Danika had a severe asthma attack in conjunction with not knowing she had bronchitis, this dangerous combination resulted in leaving her unable to breathe and going into a coma. She is currently fighting for her life and all her friends and family are fervently lifting her up in prayer. The biggest concern is how much damage may have affected her brain, from that moment she first passed out up until she reached the hospital, her brain was deprived of oxygen. There is no brain swelling, but the prognosis is still unknown. She is having consistent seizures that they are praying will soon subside so that they can try to wake her up from her medically induced coma. We’re all praying for miracles over here.

Her uncle, PJ, who is also our pastor, wrote this… “Truths to cling to (and you need all 3 to be thankful and hopeful): God is good, God is wise, and God is in control of all things. If he is good and wise but not in control, he has good intentions and plans, but we can’t trust that they’d actually be carried out since he doesn’t control it all. If he is in control and wise but not good, then we might have a bully God who uses his power and wisdom to do us harm, not good. If he is good and in control of all but not wise, he might have good intentions and the ability to do it, but if he isn’t wise enough to plan the course of action that is best, then we have may have a mistaken God. But none of these are the God of the Bible. God is wise and in control of all, and he is good to us who are in his Son Christ Jesus. #bethankful #trustJesus”

We’re praying for Danika’s body to be fully healed, we’re praying for strength for her parents Nina and Dennis (and the rest of her family), and we’re praying for everyone’s trust in God’s sovereignty through this difficult situation. If you believe in prayer, please take a moment to pray these things for Danika and her family. Also, if you feel so inclined to share in this burden of asking for prayer, please do so. To keep with updates and to help spread the word for prayer, please “like” the facebook page Pray For Danika. #prayfordanika

Thank you friends!

Thanksgiving is a week away and I have lots to be thankful for. I’m sure we all have lots to be thankful for, but one thing in particular that I am especially thankful for is all of you! I might not know all of your names, respond to all of your comments or emails (or I respond really late), but please know I am so grateful for the time you carve out to come visit us here or send me a message via email, twitter, instagram, or facebook. When I first started on this blogging thing 5 years ago, I never imagined all the support and friends I would make through this blog. It has been utterly amazing. Also, because of you and how you guys spread the word about Cakies, I have been given some fun opportunities that I never would have imagined would have come my way.

Blogging is a funny thing. It’s bonded like-minded people from all over the world and created little communities in cyberspace. I’m just a mom who started blogging to keep in touch with far away family and also because I started making (and selling) some little hair clips and wanted a place to document all the other things I was making. I just enjoyed sharing and learning from others. I am still in awe at how everything has evolved over the years and all the fun things I have been able to take part of because of this space (e.g. part of a little levi’s commercial or borrow a car from chrysler!).

As a little way of saying thank you, I wanted to do a special giveaway for you. For one lucky reader, I want to giveaway a $100 gift certificate to any shop of your choice! My choice would be Anthropologie or Madewell (my fave stores!), but since I’m leaving it up to the winner, it will be entirely up to that individual! Of course, they would have to make sure and choose a shop that sells gift certificates. This is not a sponsored post nor is it a donated giveaway, but this is simply something from me to you. You don’t even have to tweet, facebook, or blog about this giveaway. This is solely for my readers who take the time to visit here, so you can keep this little giveaway to yourself and cross your fingers you win! This giveaway has been something I have been wanting to do for awhile now, so with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought this is would be the perfect time.

Sometimes I think about how this blog may portray me and how some of you may think I’m this perfect mama, and I am going to tell you that I am most certainly not. I wish you could see me in the midst of my crazy mom outbursts or when I am having road rage, or when I am just plain being a stinker. I am not really anyone to look up to and it’s only by God’s amazing grace that I can fail, then get back up and move on. I don’t have it all together and am just navigating life and motherhood making many mistakes, trying to learn from them, and do it different the next time around. Most days when Ben gets home I just wanna cry because it was such an overwhelming day and I often feel like I failed.

I really enjoy blogging and am so thankful for it. Every time I am given a cool opportunity, I think of all of you and how you all are instrumental in those opportunities. I wish I could do something for all of you, but that realistically isn’t possible, so maybe this little token of appreciation is a start. All you have to do to enter this giveaway is to tell me one thing you are thankful for! Easy enough, right?! The giveaway will end at 8am PST on Thursday, November 22nd and this is most definitely open to my readers overseas too! Winner will be chosen randomly.

Thank you friends and good luck!!!

I can’t believe it was just last weekend that we were in San Francisco. It was the best way to spend my 31st birthday. I would love to relive that weekend all over again. This guys is the bees knees. I really do love him. Plus, he’s the handsomest man alive! I knew that the first time I laid eyes on him and once I got to know him, I really fell hard.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow walks like Charlie Chaplin. So cute!

True’s reading fluency is pretty good. I can’t believe I was able to teach her how to read! I was quite fearful of that aspect of homeschooling. God is good in helping both of us through it.

I love wearing sweaters all day long. It’s been feeling cozy these past couple days.

This is a unique necklace.

If you’re a size 7, these are really cute (and inexpensive) ankle boots!

I’m curious about Worker B face wash. Anyone try it? I’m still using this, but would love to try Worker B to see how it does.

The wedding video (made by CakeFlix) for my best (guy) friend and his wife is so beautiful. Such a testimony of God’s wonderful redeeming grace! I tear up every time I watch it. Brave was so excited she made the cut for a brief second!

I’ve never been much of a sneaker wearer except when I workout, but I love these New Balance 771s in all black.

Instagram has official web links for their users. Pretty cool. Find mine here. My user name is @rubyellenbratcher.

I love Joy’s blog redesign. She is such a talented painter too! See here. She’s also the one who redesigned Cakies a few months back.

Thankful for grace that is exhibited through the sharing life that occurs in our church family. We aren’t afraid to admit we suck, fail often, and need a lot of accountability and grace.

Thankful that God gave my BFF another year! She’s 30 now and she swears she suddenly has neck wrinkles. She’s a second mama to my girls and we are so thankful for her.

We had pumpkin waffles for our Saturday morning breakfast and I think I ate more than I should. It was so yummy though, so who cares! Enjoy your weekend friends!!!

The girls love snack time. It’s at 3:30 everyday. Most days, we just have some fruit or crackers, but on other occasions, we will have something a little special. This particular day we had to pick up some snacks from the Mexican market for True’s Spanish class, so we also picked a little pretty somethings for ourselves. Though we picked it up in the morning, they know they aren’t allowed to eat it until snack time, so you can bet they were counting down. In fact, I was too since I got a little something for myself. I think another trip to the Mexican market must happen again soon. The best thing about having a set time is that the kids know meal times is their time to eat, there isn’t constant snacking all day long because they get a snack time once a day (and this helps when we are out and about because I don’t really need to bring food to occupy them, unless it is a meal time, then of course we eat). Routines and schedules work for us and our snack times are planned into our days.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow is pretty much walking like crazy now. She is taking much longer trips on her legs! I’m not sure I’m ready for this yet. Eek!

Soul had no accidents this week. That is definitely something to be thankful about!

These chairs are pretty amazing!

Making this little pom pom arrangement!

I think this would be make a great farmer’s market/library book bag!

I love this food blog! So quirky and creative!!!

Praising God for giving me another year! My tally is at 31 and my heart is quite full (and so is my belly). My motto is calories don’t count when it’s your birthday. Don’t you agree?!

Monday’s back again in a few hours and the election is just two days away. Crazy! Then, Thanksgiving is in two and a half weeks… oh my! Seriously, can you believe that it’s already November?! I can’t!

I heard True say that to Soul the other day and how true it has been lately. She has been one tough cookie to deal with of late. I don’t know if it’s a really late onset of the terrible two’s, but she has been leaving me (all of us) feeling so overwhelmed. Her obedience has not been “right away, all the way, with a happy heart.” Lately it’s been… no, no, and NO!!! She’s definitely a firecracker. I seriously tell everyone to pray for her and for me because we haven’t been getting along lately. No joke. Actually, she doesn’t get along with anyone. I’m hoping this attitude of defiance passes quickly.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

This week was the first time Glow ever cried when I told her, “No.” It was so sad, but for her own good.

True really wants to learn to sew. She says next year, she will make her own costumes.

I so want to make these cloud magnets. They would make cute Christmas presents!

The Next Big Thing was another good heart check for me.

Love this cute and simple, vintage Halloween decorating ides. Those bottles are so good!

Thankful Halloween costumes are done. The girls will get to wear it to school, ballet class, and on Halloween night!

SoCal friends, mark your calendar because there will be a Misha Lulu Trunk Show at Common Thread Studio on Nov. 17!

This would be so cute for when the cold weather hits. I have carpel tunnel so my hands need these!

My sister has got some serious skillz. Yes, with a z because she is just that amazing.

This week has been tough as a lot of people in our church family are going through some really difficult circumstances, but I am so thankful to God for the grace that has been poured out regardless during this time of suffering. This Sunday is our church anniversary and if you anyone is in the L.A. area and would love to drop by our gathering, we’d love for you to join us!

Thankful that next week is November. I love November!!! Turkey and stuffing, here I come!

We went to the craft store this week and there was all this Christmas stuff up and the girls said, “Mommy, why do they have Christmas here? It isn’t even Halloween yet.” My response, “It’s because they want to make money.” I wasn’t sure what else to tell them. Maybe I should have told them that they didn’t want to procrastinate and then it would have led to discussion of a new vocabulary word (and hopefully they would learn procrastinating is a bad thing). It baffled their mind to already be decked out for Christmas. Are the Christmas decorations already up at your local stores?

Baby sister and I, along with some of our friends, survived the zombie apocalypse. It was intense. It was the scariest 3 miles I have ever ran (and screamed) and I would totally do it again. There will be a full post with lots of pictures (Ben runs around, well, walks around fast, trying to find us on the course to snap shots), but if any of you have plans to do the Zombie Run, get excited because it is a whole lot of scary fun!!!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

We survived! I had such nerves before the race, but it was so much fun and do it again next year!

Zombies are just plain freaky.

Happy to see the adventure the girls had with their Auntie Linda (the BFF) and Uncle John. My girls love them so much!

Glow is getting more adventurous with her walking and is getting more confident in her steps. I hope she doesn’t master it when Ben and I go out of town. I will be so sad if I miss it!

Soul requires more patience and I am having a tough time with her of late. Oh man.

True and Brave are such sponges and it is amazing to see them learn. As hard as it is to be their teacher, it is also very rewarding.

This post about busyness helped me re-evaluate my life and time. I need to work on my prioritizing. I suck at it.

These images are so beautiful and inspiring. I want to see Fall in Colorado!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chess Pie?! Yes, please!

Peanut Butter Balls?! Um, yeah!

Thankful that I can confess my shortcomings to close friends and have them encourage me on how to love God (and my children) more.

Thankful for my parents who babysat the girls so I could run the Zombie Run.

Praise the Lord we paid off two school loans and have one more left to go! Almost debt free… hooray!

Thankful for my girls. Yes, they drive me nuts, but I love them so much!

I can’t wait to go through the Zombie Run pictures and share it. I’m still on such an adrenaline from all the fun I had today!!! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!