My BIG GIRL!!!!!!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Another of my babies is fading away....
My Hannah had her first tooth pulled yesterday! What a doll! Her other tooth was coming in behind so we had to take her to the dentist to have it pulled. Poor thing, we sprung the whole deal on her. I went to pick her up from school and when I told her why we were going she about died. But, she put on her brave face and did a super job!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
GOOOOOOOOOOO Eagles!!!!!!!!
We had the best family time today. We went to the high school state football game and the girls' school won! So exciting! We NEVER do stuff like this hardly. It's just that we've always had a baby to worry about. Now that Tyler is getting bigger we can do more things like this. I am so pumped. It was so stinkin' fun! And of course I had us all decked out in school colors! Go BLUE! ;)
I couldn't resist this picture of the cross on the back of the guys' helmets! I love our school!
We got to the field a few minutes after the game started so there we no seats in the stands. But, that was actually perfect. We were right on the sidelines and the kids were able to play under the bleachers.
Dani had the best time of all I think. She was under the stands just cheering her little heart out!
The cheerleaders. Aren't they great? No immodesty here! LOVE it! From what the girls said they even wear longer skirts with little shorts under them on warmer days and pep rallies. Again, I LOVE our school!
Tyler DUG his hat and gloves. He thought he was the coolest!
And I have to include the video of the end. It's not very good but you get the idea! Sooooo FUN!
It's past my naptime Mommy!
I couldn't resist this picture of the cross on the back of the guys' helmets! I love our school!
We got to the field a few minutes after the game started so there we no seats in the stands. But, that was actually perfect. We were right on the sidelines and the kids were able to play under the bleachers.
Cutie patootie Hannah!
Dani had the best time of all I think. She was under the stands just cheering her little heart out!
The cheerleaders. Aren't they great? No immodesty here! LOVE it! From what the girls said they even wear longer skirts with little shorts under them on warmer days and pep rallies. Again, I LOVE our school!
Tyler DUG his hat and gloves. He thought he was the coolest!
And I have to include the video of the end. It's not very good but you get the idea! Sooooo FUN!Goodness, it's been too long!
I haven't posted many pictures or videos on here in FOREVER it seems. Truth be told... I've been catching up with old friends and family I don't ever get to see or talk to on Facebook which has been FUN!
So, sorry for the jumbled mess!
Daddy reading to Tyler.
This one requires a little background. Marlie has been coming home after school every day and getting out her Bible, a devotion we bought her at some point and her notebook. She "studies" in the mornings if there is time before school and when she gets home from school. I asked her teacher if they have been stressing study of the Word and turns out they are reading "Case for Faith for Kids" by Lee Strobel. Don't know if that has anything to do with it but she has been in the Word and it's awesome. I found this in her room one day when she was at school and couldn't resist the opportunity to capture it on "film". I didn't set it up at all. If you're curious, she was reading Esther at the time. ;)
Marlie with her shoebox for Operation Christmas child. We are going to put these pictures under the tree in place of the gift they are giving up to give the shoebox.
Hannah with her shoebox.
I didn't get a picture of Tyler with his shoebox because he was already in bed. He would've just tried to dig everything out anyway I'm sure.
Friday Marlie's class had a Thanksgiving feast and parents and siblings were included. They had to turn in recipes of their favorite Thanksgiving meals. They put together a book of the recipes to send home and they each had to bring in their prepared recipe on Friday. It was really fun!
This is Marlie in front of her decorated desk and centerpiece that she made. Doesn't she look so proud?!
Marlie and her teacher's 5-year-old son Jacob. Seems Jacob is somewhat smitten with Marlie, as much as a five-year-old can be. Just look at the way he is looking at her. How cute is that? Marlie's teacher said that he HAS to sit by her and be with her if he is in the classroom. Marlie just loves him to pieces!
So, sorry for the jumbled mess!
Hannah reading to Tyler. The boy loves him some books!
Daddy reading to Tyler.
Daddy playing with the kids.
Me & Dani on her first day out of nursery and in the big kid class at church. She's getting TOO big!
Just a cool picture of an oil rig at sunset with the mountains in the background. I took this from our front yard. The picture doesn't do the real thing justice at all!
This one requires a little background. Marlie has been coming home after school every day and getting out her Bible, a devotion we bought her at some point and her notebook. She "studies" in the mornings if there is time before school and when she gets home from school. I asked her teacher if they have been stressing study of the Word and turns out they are reading "Case for Faith for Kids" by Lee Strobel. Don't know if that has anything to do with it but she has been in the Word and it's awesome. I found this in her room one day when she was at school and couldn't resist the opportunity to capture it on "film". I didn't set it up at all. If you're curious, she was reading Esther at the time. ;)
Marlie with her shoebox for Operation Christmas child. We are going to put these pictures under the tree in place of the gift they are giving up to give the shoebox. 
Hannah with her shoebox.
Dani with her shoebox. What a ham!
I didn't get a picture of Tyler with his shoebox because he was already in bed. He would've just tried to dig everything out anyway I'm sure.
Friday Marlie's class had a Thanksgiving feast and parents and siblings were included. They had to turn in recipes of their favorite Thanksgiving meals. They put together a book of the recipes to send home and they each had to bring in their prepared recipe on Friday. It was really fun!
This is Marlie in front of her decorated desk and centerpiece that she made. Doesn't she look so proud?!
Dani eating her meal. Yep, that's Tyler in the background eating.
Marlie and her teacher's 5-year-old son Jacob. Seems Jacob is somewhat smitten with Marlie, as much as a five-year-old can be. Just look at the way he is looking at her. How cute is that? Marlie's teacher said that he HAS to sit by her and be with her if he is in the classroom. Marlie just loves him to pieces!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
My blog... awarded... SERIOUS?!
I guess I just don't think people are all that interested in my life but apparently I am wrong. TWO of my friends and fellow bloggers gave me this:
How crazy is that?! My friend Carrie was the first to give me the award and then Valinda did today. You guys are too sweet! If you click on their names it will take you to their blogs!
How crazy is that?! My friend Carrie was the first to give me the award and then Valinda did today. You guys are too sweet! If you click on their names it will take you to their blogs!
So here are the rules:
1) List 5 things you love.
2) Pass the award on to your 5 favorite bloggers.
3) And put a link back to my blog.
So here are the things that I love:
1) Learning about my Savior's unsurpassing love and grace. It really is amazing!
2) Laughing... I am so blessed to have a husband who helps me in this department and keeps me in stitches nearly every day.
3) That I am THE ONE who can comfort my kids right now - I am trying to relish it while it lasts. Sorry honey, you're a great substitute but there's just no one like mama right now!
4) Praising through song. I love to do it, but not so sure anyone else loves hearing me do it. Except Jesus, He loves a joyful NOISE! How thankful I am for that!
5) My extended family. I am not good and showing it and keeping in touch, but I have been blessed with a wonderful family, INCLUDING the family I married into!
Golly... who do I reward? I don't follow a lot of blogs anyway and the ones I do have been awarded... Let's see!
1) Ambitious African Adventures - This is a wonderful blog of my friend Robyn's who I met incredibly through a message board and feel I am kindred spirits with. Anyway, I don't know if it is open to the public yet but I can assure you you will want to keep up with it as she and her family go into the mission field in Lukulu, Zambia, Africa!
2) The Prague Blog - My niece Michelle who stepped out in faith and moved to Prague for 8 months to teach English. What a girl... no... woman! I love seeing what adventures she takes that I was always too chicken to even think about.
3) KK Ville - My aunt's blog. She is an amazing writer and photographer. LOVE it. You should check out today's entry. It's CRAZY!
4) Journey to Ellison Brook - This is a new blog that I am following of a friend's journey to adopting a little girl. Love her honesty and candor!
5) Kendra's Blog - I don't know for sure if this is open to the public or not... but it is an awesome blog written by my sweet sister-in-law. She is a fantastic woman of faith whom Christ just beams through! If you are able, you HAVE to go there and check out the new pics of their adorable family!
There ya have it!
So here are the things that I love:
1) Learning about my Savior's unsurpassing love and grace. It really is amazing!
2) Laughing... I am so blessed to have a husband who helps me in this department and keeps me in stitches nearly every day.
3) That I am THE ONE who can comfort my kids right now - I am trying to relish it while it lasts. Sorry honey, you're a great substitute but there's just no one like mama right now!
4) Praising through song. I love to do it, but not so sure anyone else loves hearing me do it. Except Jesus, He loves a joyful NOISE! How thankful I am for that!
5) My extended family. I am not good and showing it and keeping in touch, but I have been blessed with a wonderful family, INCLUDING the family I married into!
Golly... who do I reward? I don't follow a lot of blogs anyway and the ones I do have been awarded... Let's see!
1) Ambitious African Adventures - This is a wonderful blog of my friend Robyn's who I met incredibly through a message board and feel I am kindred spirits with. Anyway, I don't know if it is open to the public yet but I can assure you you will want to keep up with it as she and her family go into the mission field in Lukulu, Zambia, Africa!
2) The Prague Blog - My niece Michelle who stepped out in faith and moved to Prague for 8 months to teach English. What a girl... no... woman! I love seeing what adventures she takes that I was always too chicken to even think about.
3) KK Ville - My aunt's blog. She is an amazing writer and photographer. LOVE it. You should check out today's entry. It's CRAZY!
4) Journey to Ellison Brook - This is a new blog that I am following of a friend's journey to adopting a little girl. Love her honesty and candor!
5) Kendra's Blog - I don't know for sure if this is open to the public or not... but it is an awesome blog written by my sweet sister-in-law. She is a fantastic woman of faith whom Christ just beams through! If you are able, you HAVE to go there and check out the new pics of their adorable family!
There ya have it!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
You MUST watch this...oh, and have your tissue handy!
This is the most amazing video picture of our Father's love and sacrifice. Many of you have probably heard this in a sermon or somewhere before but... MAN! It's only about 5 minutes long and so worth it! Just click here and you should be taken to it!
Monday, November 10, 2008
HIS thoughts are not our (MY) thoughts!
I don't know about you guys, but I've been wondering over the past week just what God might be doing through the election of Barak Obama as our next president. I've gone through all of the emotions: sadness because of his stance on those ideals we as Christians hold so dearly, anger as I struggle with judgment issues (my own), excitement to see how God is going to use this and could He be ushering in something REALLY big as we humans see it, amazement because it really is a historic moment to elect someone of color to the highest office in this country. But I have to admit that my primary thought has been that God is just giving us over to ourselves (by that I mean our country as a whole), giving us what we deserve, etc...
As most of you know, I am currently reading "Transforming Grace" by Jerry Bridges. Fabulous! Well, today I was reading the second to last chapter on "Appropriating God's Grace", i.e. taking hold of God's grace. Bear with me here, there is a point.
In this chapter, Jerry Bridges talks about seeing the sovereignty of God in our circumstances. He makes the point that if we are to truly take hold of the grace of God we must see the hand of God behind ALL of our circumstances not just the good. No matter how those circumstances take place or who is behind them, God is ultimately behind it all. Most of us get that right? And, he sites the stories of Job and Joseph. The author of Job gives all the "credit" for Job's troubles to the Lord. And Joseph himself did not blame his brothers for putting him in the pit to eventually be taken into slavery but said "So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God" Genesis 45:8...
My point? Jerry Bridges goes on to point out that it is hard for us to see God's hand in the hard times. And it is isn't it, even though we know better? Here is what Jerry Bridges said to that effect: "Discipline may be either corrective or remedial. It may be sent for the purpose of correcting some sinful attitude or action, or to remedy some lack in our character. In either case, it is administered by our heavenly Father in love, not in wrath. Jesus has already borne the wrath of God in our place, so all adversities that come to us, come because He loves us and designs to conform us to the likeness of His Son." My immediate reaction to what is happening is to say, yep, we are being corrected. And, perhaps we are but not out of His hatred for Barak Obama or because we as Christians have gone so far to the left ourselves! No, it's because He LOVES us that He has allowed Obama in the White House! Do I "get" that? No! But, I do know that He is behind it, orchestrating it.
One more point that I found humbling... I know A LOT of Christians who are not happy in the least with the prospect of an Obama administration or what this country will look like with the extremely liberal slant to his views/prospective legislation and that of our now almost completely liberal executive branch. Think about this one also taken from the book mentioned before "...we tend to evaluate all our circumstances in terms of whether or not they produce happiness. Holiness, however, is a greater good than happiness, so God arranges and orchestrates circumstances to produce holiness before happiness." (emphasis mine)
Now, I say to you, and myself, isn't is quite possible that God did not just allow this man into the White House to punish us as the outright immoral, sinful nation that we've become. Maybe it's not about that at all. Satan has them in his camp. He just might have an avenue to work on us even harder now. So, maybe, just maybe God is using this to produce holiness in us. Are we willing to let Him do that? Are we willing to go through and do whatever it takes to come to that end? I don't know about you, but I have yet to think of the results of this election in that way so...
In addition to praying for our new president as the Scriptures instruct us to, and praying that "those" people's hearts will be opened to the Truth through this, I will now be praying that God would use this time as He sees fit to bring about greater holiness in me, my family, my church and my fellow believers across this nation!
So, I guess all of this could really be summed up in one simple statement. I guess it's not necessarily about "them" but about US!
OFF my soapbox now and on to cooking dinner! Hope that wasn't just a rambling mess to you but I tried to put all the thoughts floating around in my head down as clearly as I could!
As most of you know, I am currently reading "Transforming Grace" by Jerry Bridges. Fabulous! Well, today I was reading the second to last chapter on "Appropriating God's Grace", i.e. taking hold of God's grace. Bear with me here, there is a point.
In this chapter, Jerry Bridges talks about seeing the sovereignty of God in our circumstances. He makes the point that if we are to truly take hold of the grace of God we must see the hand of God behind ALL of our circumstances not just the good. No matter how those circumstances take place or who is behind them, God is ultimately behind it all. Most of us get that right? And, he sites the stories of Job and Joseph. The author of Job gives all the "credit" for Job's troubles to the Lord. And Joseph himself did not blame his brothers for putting him in the pit to eventually be taken into slavery but said "So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God" Genesis 45:8...
My point? Jerry Bridges goes on to point out that it is hard for us to see God's hand in the hard times. And it is isn't it, even though we know better? Here is what Jerry Bridges said to that effect: "Discipline may be either corrective or remedial. It may be sent for the purpose of correcting some sinful attitude or action, or to remedy some lack in our character. In either case, it is administered by our heavenly Father in love, not in wrath. Jesus has already borne the wrath of God in our place, so all adversities that come to us, come because He loves us and designs to conform us to the likeness of His Son." My immediate reaction to what is happening is to say, yep, we are being corrected. And, perhaps we are but not out of His hatred for Barak Obama or because we as Christians have gone so far to the left ourselves! No, it's because He LOVES us that He has allowed Obama in the White House! Do I "get" that? No! But, I do know that He is behind it, orchestrating it.
One more point that I found humbling... I know A LOT of Christians who are not happy in the least with the prospect of an Obama administration or what this country will look like with the extremely liberal slant to his views/prospective legislation and that of our now almost completely liberal executive branch. Think about this one also taken from the book mentioned before "...we tend to evaluate all our circumstances in terms of whether or not they produce happiness. Holiness, however, is a greater good than happiness, so God arranges and orchestrates circumstances to produce holiness before happiness." (emphasis mine)
Now, I say to you, and myself, isn't is quite possible that God did not just allow this man into the White House to punish us as the outright immoral, sinful nation that we've become. Maybe it's not about that at all. Satan has them in his camp. He just might have an avenue to work on us even harder now. So, maybe, just maybe God is using this to produce holiness in us. Are we willing to let Him do that? Are we willing to go through and do whatever it takes to come to that end? I don't know about you, but I have yet to think of the results of this election in that way so...
In addition to praying for our new president as the Scriptures instruct us to, and praying that "those" people's hearts will be opened to the Truth through this, I will now be praying that God would use this time as He sees fit to bring about greater holiness in me, my family, my church and my fellow believers across this nation!
So, I guess all of this could really be summed up in one simple statement. I guess it's not necessarily about "them" but about US!
OFF my soapbox now and on to cooking dinner! Hope that wasn't just a rambling mess to you but I tried to put all the thoughts floating around in my head down as clearly as I could!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
So proud of my kids!
I am so proud of my kids this morning! Well, I was yesterday too but just now got the chance to sit and blog about it! ;)
Anyway, we have a tradition in our family that each of our kids get three presents from us for Christmas. We did that partly to limit ourselves and what we spend on them and because three gifts were mentioned as being presented to Jesus when the wise men visited him. So, if three was sufficient to be mentioned in the Bible, we figure it's plenty for our kids. Usually they each get one BIG thing, an outfit and one little thing...
Well, we also like to participate in Operation Christmas Child. If you are not familiar, this is a ministry that sends out shoeboxes filled by families here in the U.S. to children around the world who might not otherwise receive anything for Christmas. Anyway, as my kids get older, I get more concerned about making sure that Christmas is not centered around them receiving gifts but about the gospel message. My original plan was to fill one shoebox as a family. But, I approached my kids yesterday with the idea of each of them having a box to fill. Here's the catch: they would each give up one of their three gifts to send out a box for the cause. To my surprise, there was no hesitation. I am so proud of them. So, off we went to the dollar store to fill all of our boxes with goodies: crayons, fun jewelry, socks, stickers, candy, puzzles, books.... it was fun! I figured we could stuff WAY more things in the boxes from the dollar store and the kids receiving them would think it as gold!
So, that was my most recent proud mommy moment! Now we will take pictures of them with their boxes to put under the tree as a reminder of their sacrificial giving this year and so they remember, hopefully, that our lives are about sharing, not receiving!
Thank you Jesus for giving to us - Your life, Your Spirit, Your creation... EVERYTHING! May we as parents live out the spirit of giving and sacrifice in front of our kids so we can develop that within them!
Anyway, we have a tradition in our family that each of our kids get three presents from us for Christmas. We did that partly to limit ourselves and what we spend on them and because three gifts were mentioned as being presented to Jesus when the wise men visited him. So, if three was sufficient to be mentioned in the Bible, we figure it's plenty for our kids. Usually they each get one BIG thing, an outfit and one little thing...
Well, we also like to participate in Operation Christmas Child. If you are not familiar, this is a ministry that sends out shoeboxes filled by families here in the U.S. to children around the world who might not otherwise receive anything for Christmas. Anyway, as my kids get older, I get more concerned about making sure that Christmas is not centered around them receiving gifts but about the gospel message. My original plan was to fill one shoebox as a family. But, I approached my kids yesterday with the idea of each of them having a box to fill. Here's the catch: they would each give up one of their three gifts to send out a box for the cause. To my surprise, there was no hesitation. I am so proud of them. So, off we went to the dollar store to fill all of our boxes with goodies: crayons, fun jewelry, socks, stickers, candy, puzzles, books.... it was fun! I figured we could stuff WAY more things in the boxes from the dollar store and the kids receiving them would think it as gold!
So, that was my most recent proud mommy moment! Now we will take pictures of them with their boxes to put under the tree as a reminder of their sacrificial giving this year and so they remember, hopefully, that our lives are about sharing, not receiving!
Thank you Jesus for giving to us - Your life, Your Spirit, Your creation... EVERYTHING! May we as parents live out the spirit of giving and sacrifice in front of our kids so we can develop that within them!
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