News Flash

Avery took her first steps tonight! We were reading Bible stories before bedtime in Jonathan's room, and she finally got enough courage to take a few steps from Amy to Ben. We were so excited and she walked back and forth between Ben, Amy, and I several times. Jonathan thought it was the best thing ever, I don't know if I have ever seen him smile so big. I am so glad that it happened when we could all be there to cheer her on and make her feel special.

sisters and roses

When I was growing up and we would drive hours away to visit family, my sisters and I used to laugh and laugh about how my mom and her sister would always be matching once we got there. Now look at us:
Amy came into town today to stay with us for a while. We are so excited to see her!

Also, look at this rose bush that is growing in our back yard. They are mini roses and are vining on a tree. Gorgeous!!!

Catching up on pictures...in reverse order

Avery turned 1!
We actually got a decent family picture.
Jonathan turned 3!
Easter. I know it's blurry, but it had been a long morning.

Melt my heart

Yesterday I was changing Avery and Jonathan came over to the changing table. He stood up on his tiptoes and touched Avery's face and said, "Avery, I'm glad you are my sister".

Raindrops on Roses

Today was my favorite MOPS meeting of the year, called "favorite things". It is very similar to Oprah's show in that the leadership brings in some of our favorite things to share with the group. Lots and lots of things are given away, some in a drawing and some items are given to everyone. It is sooo much fun to hear what makes other moms lives easier and happier.
Here are ten of my favorite things:
1. Stila lip glaze. This is what I shared with our group today as my favorite splurge. It is really the best lip gloss I have ever used. It stays on, tastes and smells great, and really looks like the color that it is in the tube.
2. Lindt truffles. YUM! This is the best chocolate ever. My favorites are the milk chocolate, white chocolate, or dark chocolates. Next time you see these next to a checkout stand you need to snag one.
3. Clorox wipes. I imagine that life without these would feel something like the stone ages. I use them everywhere, on everything.
4. Mrs. Meyers clean day geranium scent products. This.stuff.smells.so.good. The idea behind Mrs. Meyers products is that you can use one scent throughout your home so there are no clashing smells. My grocery store carries limited items in the geranium, so I usually stick to the hand soap and use it by my kitchen sink.
5. My Rowdy diaper bag. We all know how hard it is to find a great diaper bag. With Jonathan I ended up using the black one from the hospital because it was the only one I had that I could completely wipe down. This one is all that and so, so much more. It has a removable, washable liner and a removable clutch purse for my stuff. I use it with the long shoulder strap, but you can also make it into a backpack or use the short strap to carry it on your arm. Plus I think it is super cute. I'm all about stuff with form AND function.
6. Lansinoh diaper rash cream. Sorry Beaudreaux's, this stuff is better. It has zinc oxide to heal the rash, and lanolin to soothe it.
7. Wellness dog food. Ok, this is more like Mazie's favorite thing, but it is really great dog food. It has all human grade ingredients, no corn (almost every dog food and treat has some kind of corn), and it seems to taste great. Mazie practically inhales it when we set it out, and she has never been like that with food before. The lack of corn has helped her allergies tremendously, as she no longer scratches her skin raw. Many thanks to Superchikk for introducing me to this brand of pet food.
8. My Gym. This is the other thing I shared with our MOPS today. We love love love Jonathan's class and look forward to it every week. I have seen him grow so much in our time at My Gym.
9. Francine Rivers Christian Fiction. I have loved reading fiction ever since my first Ramona Quimby book in the second grade. Francine Rivers is unbelievably talented and reading one of her books will consume every minute of your spare time until you finish it. You are warned.
10. Rainbow flip flops. I almost forgot about these because I have to keep my feet adequately covered in the winter time, but here in about 3 weeks I expect that my Rainbows will attach themselves to my feet and stay there until, oh, about September. This will be my 3rd summer with them and they only get better with age. And water.

Now, what are your favorite things? Please leave me a comment with at least one!

Snow Day!

We woke up this morning to find snow on the ground! Here are some pictures of our adventure in the backyard.

Pat a cake

Avery has been a busy girl this week. She's pushing up on her hands and knees a little bit and trying hard to pull up. She also is saying hi and loves to pat a cake.

Avery's room

A while back, I wrote that we were having to find a new home because the owner of our rental was filing bankruptcy. It was a frustrating process to find a new house, but the Lord led us to a house that we are in love with. We moved in just before Christmas, and I am just now getting to the point where I can really settle in.
Avery finally has her own room here. In our last house she was sharing with the guest room, and it was white walls and pretty boring. Here she has a yellow room with a pink ceiling fan that matches her bedding perfectly. The Lord is so good to give us good gifts...things that aren't essential but He gives them to us because we love them.
Here it is:

Ok, I need a lesson on adding pictures to my blog. I can never figure out how to get them where I want to go. Hopefully you get the idea.

When I grow down

Last night Jonathan said to me "When you grow down, you can be little like me".
Love it!

Over the past few days I have had three separate and entirely different earrings disappear from my right ear. What in the world is going on? Luckily I was able to find two of them (including my cherished diamond earring that Ben gave me when Avery was born) and the one that seems to be gone forever was a cheap find. So, I will be taking a break from earring wearing until I can figure out if I have developed some kind of crazy earring rejecting disease.
Any thoughts?

A few Christmas pictures

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas festivities. Ben's dad came to spend Christmas with us and it was very special to have him here. On Christmas eve we made a birthday cake for Jesus and Avery said Grandpa about four times. We couldn't believe our ears but we all heard it and there was no mistake that was what she was saying, because Jonathan had just been trying to get his Grandpa's attention and was saying "Grandpa" over and over. Her little seven month old voice just said "Gampa" as plain as day.

Jonathan and Avery got a kitchen to share. Jonathan was teaching his little sister all about it. We had a fabulous Christmas and hope you did as well.

Tonight was our annual LSM Christmas banquet where our kids go all out and get dressed up and act like they are all grown up. It is a ton of fun and a good chance to get some pictures of our family in our Christmas clothes.














The kids received lots of attention. Avery waved at people all night long and it cracked me up! She started babbling a lot more this week and I'm pretty sure she said "Daddy" a couple of times. She loves her daddy! She stares at him nonstop and gives him the girliest smiles I have ever seen. She also started eating baby food this week (yeah, I held out on that till almost seven months) so now she thinks she can eat anything. Here she is gumming a wrapped Tootsie Roll. She still isn't moving much. She will roll from front to back if she absolutely had to but seems completely unmotivated to transport herself from one place to another.







Jonathan got a haircut today and looks so grown up to me. He is so excited about Christmas this year and it is so fun to see the wonder of the season from his eyes.














Here is our fabulous student ministry staff. We love them like crazy and surely would not be able to do what we do without them.



Merry Christmas to you all!

Vintage Baby

Here are some pictures of Avery in the clothes I talked about here.





























And here are some pictures I took of here about a month ago, her 4 month pictures.











































I would love to show you a picture of Jonathan, but here is an example of what happens when we try to get a picture of him these days.
He is so busy all the time and is always coming up with new things to say. Right now he is loving his Bible stories book and asks me to "talk about" all the stories. He told his friend last night "I need to hang out with you", and told me "I need money" because he wanted candy from the vending machine. This morning he was eating Trix for breakfast and one of them fell on the floor. He said "I need my trick". His favorite game in the car is "which animal" where he says "which animal mommy" and I name every animal I can think of. Fun times!

Happy Halloween!!!

Like Water to my Soul

God's Word came so alive to me in my quiet time today. I want to share. As I was reading I was thinking about the question that students often ask and that I have also asked in the past, "Why don't we offer sacrifices anymore?" The answer is that Jesus was the once and for all sacrifice for our sins. This truth made it deeper into my heart today as I read. I will type scripture in bold and my thoughts as I read in italics. I hope this is water to your soul today too.

From Hebrews chapter 10:

For if the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer year after year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

Makes perfect sense- if a sacrifice made a person perfect, that person would not have to make any more sacrifices.

But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

But they did have to make sacrifices again and again. Until Jesus came. Then no more sacrifices. Why was His sacrifice the last one? Because it made us perfect. PERFECT!!! My heart is jumping for joy at this truth. Here's how scripture says it:

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where there is remission of sins, there is no longer an offering for sin."

So I don't have to offer sacrifices because the Lord sees me as perfect. Is there anything in my life that I am offering as a "sacrifice" because deep down I just don't believe that the Lord really sees me as perfect? My spirit tells me that there is. Lord, show me what those things are in my life.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with at true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

I don't have to make any of my "sacrifices". I can come BOLDLY before Him-just like I am. I am in tears over the goodness of this. Oh Lord, your work is so good, so perfect, so thorough. I am overwhelmed by it today. Praises!!!

I want to share one more thing that happened in my quiet time today. I mentioned in my last post that we recently made a big financial commitment. The Lord is providing for what we thought would have to be extra money for rent, and I'll be able to share more details of that in coming weeks. Another thing that the commitment involved was that we stop the habit of running through the drive through for food all the time. Well, tonight the kids and I will be out until after 5:30 and I know that when we get home we will all be hungry and cranky and I won't have much time at all to prepare anything. Especially now that my quiet time has taken up a big portion of my afternoon. So I was thinking that we would need to go ahead and get something on the way home tonight. Without knowing any of this, Ben sent me a text message while I was in the middle of this awesome time with the Lord that said that he will be bringing home leftovers from a function they are having this afternoon. How about that? Jehovah Jireh - the Lord our provider. I'm in tears again. Blessings!

What a Difference a Day Makes

The economic crisis hit home with us today. I mean really hit home. I got a call from the realtor that manages the house we are renting and learned that the owner is going into bankruptcy and this house will be foreclosed in January. So we are in the market for a rental home. We have been planning on moving to a bigger house when the lease is up in May, but it's interesting that this happened now because last week we made a big financial commitment that doesn't allow us to pay any more in rent than we are now. I think it's going to be a blessing to us because we have time to look around and see what's out there. Our moving dates are very flexible, any time between now and January, and maybe even after that if we need it. We get all of our deposit back and don't even have to clean the carpets when we leave. We are trusting the Lord to provide the perfect home for us. I'm excited to see what he is going to do. We are praying for the owner during this time of hardship, she had purchased this house with an inheritance she recieved and now it is gone. She is a believer and the realtor said her church is being very supportive of her as she walks through all of this.

Avery rolled over for the first time today! I put her on her tummy and went into the kitchen for a minute and when I came back she was on her back.

So that was our day, well part of it. The rest was toddler madness.

Friends

Last night Jonathan and I were talking about his new big boy Thomas the Train underwear.
Me: Who are Thomas's friends?
J: Percy AND Gordon
Me: Who are Jonathan's friends? ( I had no idea what he would say and definitely wasn't expecting this)...
J: Mommy and Daddy...AND Avery

Thank you Lord. Oh how I wish he feels this way forever.

Playing Dress Up

Yesterday I got a box in the mail from my mom with some clothes that she had picked up for the kids. In it was some dresses from when my sisters and I were babies. Oh my goodness. I am in love with these little vintage baby dresses, and I spent the evening last night looking for more online. I may have found a new hobby...collecting vintage baby clothes. I can't wait to wash and iron them and get them on my sweet baby girl!
Jonathan is loving him some blue's clues these days. Yesterday we were in the parking lot at the church and he said "Where's an orange clue? Where's an orange clue? OVER THERE!!!" Sure enough someone had orange "go tigers" paint on their car complete with Orange paw print. I have learned that when he says he sees something he really does, and it usually takes me a few minutes to figure it out.

Figured it out

Change template to minima. Wasn't reading close enough.

HELP!!!

Ok, this looks rediculous. How do I get my old template out of the middle of this thing?