Adelyn's 16 Month Birthday!

Sweet Adelyn, you are so precious. Everyone adores your crazy hair! You are full of energy when you are feeling well. We have had some real trouble

this month with your ears but we are hoping to get tubes really soon! I know God must have an amazing plan for your life

 because we have just had so many health problems with you and I feel like Satan wants to get us down but we refuse to let him. When you do feel good and you just smile all the time, it makes my day. As far as I can tell, you are such a tom boy and you are still obsessed with dogs! (Your shirt has a picture of a dog and says, "My BFF." :) )

 You always try to entertain me and you laugh a whole lot. You really do bring joy to our house. You are always wanting to "rough house" with Annabelle and she just doesn't like to do that so it is funny to watch the two of you work it out. Annabelle now calls you "baby jane" which we think is so cute!

 You love Annabelle so much and whenever she hugs or kisses you, your face just lights up. You now know how to say all kinds of words. You try to repeat a lot of things we say. One of your new words this month is purple. I just love it.

It's funny how much you don't sleep these days and normally that would really stress me out but I have learned to enjoy my cuddle time with you in the middle of the night. There is just something about it that warms my heart. I guess it's knowing you need me or maybe just want me to be close to you. It's really sweet. 

Honey, I love you dearly. I can't wait until you are all better which I believe God can and will do for you but my prayer today was even if He decides for you to always be sick with something, I pray I can always have faith that what He is doing is the very best for you. Your life has already taught me so much sweet girl and has brought me so much closer to the Lord. Thank you for that.

Happy 16 months!!
love,
your mommy

Practice Photo Shoot

I wanted this to be Adelyn's 17 month post since it's now 9 days late! haha! But, we took these pictures today because I am taking the girls out to take pictures of them in their

 Easter outfits tomorrow and I just wanted to see how it would go today. Adam also practiced taking pictures with the church camera to learn how to use it better and he got a really super

 duper cute picture of Adelyn and so I decided I couldn't post Ad's 17 month post without that picture. (He can't get it off the camera because the cord is at work.) Anyway, enough explanation.

 It was chilly chilly today but we were so thankful for the sunshine we did not care at all! The girls had a blast playing in the field across from our house.

 I have been accused of posting too many pictures....I have no idea why?! haha.

 Anyway, we went to the park and then to the McDonald's playground. It was really fun!

 I know I am being so random but I had to explain these outfits. I got AB's dress for 3.50 from Once Upon a Child and monogrammed it with just an "A" so Adelyn can wear it too.

 Adelyn's shirt I bought on sale for 3.50 from Target because it says that the dog is her BFF and that soo describes her and her pants I got for a dollar from Walmart in the clearance section.

 I love to get really good deals on the girls clothes. I mean I kinda have to but I don't like to look at it like that. I like to look at it as honoring God with what I am given. I have been taking their clothes that

 I don't want to use for the next baby. No, they don't give me tons of money but I am able to get lots of things for the money they give me for the clothes I trade in so it works out well!

Anyway, the girls are now in bed and Adam is waiting for me to hang out with him so I better go! I am having the worst blog title luck these days. I cannot think of blog titles for anything! haha! Oh well! Have a good weekend!!


Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24

Annabelle's First Bible Verse~ Deut 6:8

Schooling, Our Week So Far & Answered Request!!!!!

I have thought a lot about how to school my girls when they get older.

To homeschool..... to send to public school...... I wish there was an option to send them to private school as well but it is just too expensive as of right now.

I can already see that there are disadvantages and advantages to every option.

Why do you/ did you school the way you did? ........ Just curious

I know ultimately God will lead us in the right direction. I just love to get others input.

I also know A LOT of the teens we are around are taking or will be taking again the SAT or ACT and so I have a wonderful website that would offer some tutoring help for you! The site claims to be able to improve your ACT score on average 3 points, that's HUGE! There is a location here in Columbus at Ohio State! The website can be located at: http://www.studypoint.com/

 I forgot to post these pictures I took on Sunday. It really was sweet teaching the kids about Jesus.

Monday afternoon, my mom sent a package! The girls played and played with it.  :)

My sweet friend Tammy gave us some Easter chocolate candies that she molded. We also enjoyed those on Monday!

Also on Monday, AB got a haircut!

She was perfect! I talked about it all day long and when she went in she was so happy she was getting her hair cut. It was cute!

She even let Sarah put a braid in her hair which I assured Sarah she would NEVER let me do!!

 Last night we went to the mall and Ashley came with us! Adelyn wanted to hold her hand the entire way; it was so sweet!

Today, we went to the library for an hour and half! The girls really enjoyed it so we just stayed and stayed.

Today, God answered a HUGE prayer request of mine....to go into details would be silly but it meant a lot to me. It was something that I had purposefully not stressed out about even though it was "stress out able" situation.

I don't know if this will make sense to anyone but it reminds me a bit of how our diaper changes have been going with Adelyn these days. She absolutely HATES to get her diaper changed. See, she has had a HORRIBLE Diaper rash and so she freaks out. Either way her diaper is going to get changed, whether she freaks out or not. Either way, it is for her ultimate good but it always, without fail breaks my heart when those real tears flow from a diaper change.

I know this is probably a crazy comparison, but I wonder if God feels that way about us. Either way, the same outcome is going to happen and it is going to be for our good. It is our choice if we want to calmly approach the painful situation or we can scream and kick and be mad at God and make it so much harder on us and make God sad in the process.

Just thinking...

So here is the Psalm of praise for my answered request today!!

Psalm 100

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!

      Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come before him, singing with joy.
     Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
     He made us, and we are his. 

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
      Enter his gates with thanksgiving;

go into his courts with praise.
     Give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good.
      His unfailing love continues forever,
      and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

Thankful Tuesday

The Lord has been teaching me so much about being thankful. I wrote in my daily journal on 5-15 "I need to spend more time treasuring my blessings and meditating on the goodness and greatness of God. If I did this, I really would be content." This is so true for me. One of Satan's big traps for me is to get me to focus on the things I do not like about my life while neglecting to thank God for the things He has given me and that I love.

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you O Lord my rock and my redeemer." Psalm 19:14

The word of God mentions the word "thanks" 111 times in the bible, and thanksgiving 32 times (from the KJV.) I would say that these words are pretty important, wouldn't you? My favorite definition of the word "thanks" that comes from the Hebrew word "yadah" is to shoot with arrows. I hope I am not taking this too far but I see this as a picture of us being so overwhelmed by thankfulness that it shoots out of us to everyone around and back to God.

Another definition from the same word "yadah" of "thanks" is "praise." By thanking God, we are praising Him, worshiping Him with our lives.

Of course, if you know me, you know there is LOTS more to say about this topic, but I promised myself I was going to keep it short (or shorter) today. :)

All of this being said, the Lord really did lay it on my heart to start making lists of things I am thankful for often. Like I said in the beginning, this will help me to take my eyes off of my sometimes somewhat undesirable situation and help me focus on His goodness to me.

I am thankful for:

Good Health

2 beautiful little girls

A husband who loves me dearly

Rich friendships

Spending Easter with the Fulks Sunday

Adelyn is mostly over reflux

I got another good night's sleep last night!

A house that not only meets our needs but our wants

My van! :)

God's never ending grace

His beautiful words to me

Getting to stay home with me kids

See, that was so good for me to focus on what God has given to me. I cannot help but include some of my favorite scriptures on the topic.

Philippians 4:4
Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say REJOICE.

Psalm 100:4
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name.

Colossians 3:15
And let the peace of God rule your hearts, to which you have been called in one body, and be thankful.

I would love for you to link up or if you don't have a blog, just to comment with things you are thankful for. I would LOVE for anyone to link up and do the same if you would like to!! I feel like by reading or hearing what others are thankful for, it encourages me too! Please don't listen to the "other side" telling you it's dumb or cheesy. Thanking the Lord for what He has done is pleasing to Him and  biblical.

1 Chronicles 16:8

Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people!!

Easter 2011

 

My sweet girls looked so adorable on Sunday morning. The only way I thought I could get them both in a picture was to sit them on the couch and turn on Dora. haha. You do what you have to right?!

 I mentioned before that I had a lady from nanadesigns on etsy make these dresses and the headband pieces and then I made them into the headbands.

 I was more than pleased at how everything turned out!

 We had a little bit of a crazy Sunday morning but it was ok. I was excited to get to church.

 Annabelle just looked so cute blowing her bubbles. I love those little bubble things because they are spill proof!

 I couldn't resist getting that sweet face.

 My attempt at a shot of the two of us! I love Annabelle's cheese face here and I notice that I have some wrinkles! haha! I'm getting old!

 

After church while we were waiting for Adam to get home to go to the Fulks, Annabelle played with her "moon dough" from Marmie and PapaDaddy. This stuff is awesome and she LOVES it!

 Ok, so these are the Easter baskets except I forgot I got Adam three bags of coffee and I forgot to put them in his basket!! Opps! I found out the next morning when I walked downstairs to the smell of vanilla biscotti coffee and remembered that was for Adam's Easter. I had put it with the coffee and he found it thinking I had just bought it because. ha!

 Adelyn got a color wonder coloring book. Annabelle used to spend forever coloring with these. Adelyn spent about 20 seconds. Oh and she has a piece of turkey bacon in her hand. She is hilarious.

 Both of the girls had a ball with the bubbles.

It was a wonderful Easter. I got to work in the 3-5s room and our verse for the day was Matthew 28:20 "God is with you always." It was such a great reminder. We said it over and over and over again to them and it spoke to me too, what do you know!?!

Adam said the service was great and we had 330 people! How awesome!


Tomorrow, I am going to start a Thankful Tuesday blog post. God has been teaching me so much on being thankful and it's just overflowing out of me. More on that tomorrow....