Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Great quote and favorite song

The spirit of complaint is born out of an unwillingness to trust God with today.
Like the Israelites, it means you are spending your time looking back toward Egypt or wishing for the future all the while missing what God is doing right now."
— Priscilla Shirer


I mentioned this song as helping me through many days when I just wanted to crawl under the covers tonight in community group. It helped my heart!! By Kutless- "you are everything I need"


"Everything I Need"

When every step is so hard to take
And all of my hope is fading away
When life is a mountain that I can not climb
You carry me, Jesus carry me.

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in my time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need

When every moment is more than I can take
And all of my strength is slipping away
When every breath gets harder me
You carry me, Jesus carry me

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in my time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need

I need You
You are everything I need
I love everything about You

You Are strength in my weakness
You are the refuge I seek
You are everything in my time of need
You are everything, You are everything I need 

I love David

King David that is :) I just finished reading a book titled Bathsheba. It was great. There are so many qualities that I LONG to have that he did but I am SO thankful God used him in such a great manner because it gives me hope that I can and will do "better.". He was a man with many faults, no pedigree to speak of, and yet HE was still in the direct line of my Christ's bloodline. His redemption story is Ah-mazing! I love to sing as most of you know and I am filled with such passion and need to worship when I read Psalms. I can relate to SO many he wrote. I fail, I try, I get frustrated, but in the end I LOVE Jesus and have a heart that runs after Him. What is even more amazing is that He loves me and no matter how far I fall He loves me anyway. I read the other day an article defending Christianity and  one of the statements has stuck with me.....What is I come to the end of my life and I AM wrong? Well, I will have lived a life with hope, peace, and forgiveness but what if you get to the end of your life and I am right?????
O God, give me a heart that speaks your name and a life that points to you. Let others see not only my failures but your redemption- it is SO sweet and merciful. How thankful I am.....David has a heart that sought you and I can only hope and pray I will be the same.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Life altering books

I have read several books the last 11 months that have completely CHANGED my perspective on life. They are truly eye opening and cover a range of topics :)
1. Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
2. Radical by David Platt
3. Crazy Love by Frances Chan
4. Made to Crave by Lisa Turkhurst- it talks about food addiction but can apply to any addiction/obsession


I recommend these highly :) Beware....you may never look at life the same!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Will is TWO!!

So cliche' but so true....WHERE does the time go????? I really can't believe he is already two! We went and rode go-karts, played in the funhouse, and played games for bubby's birthday! He loved it of course :)

Stats:

29 pounds- outweights Lauren
35 1/4 inches tall
size 2T clothes and size NINE shoe...his foot is ginormous! :)
He loves to eat pretty much anything....except not crazy about sweets...I KNOW- am I sure I birthed this child??? :)
His speech is coming along.....but I am SO glad Dr. Wendel warned me at his delivery that his "track" would be MUCH slower than the girls.....I'll never forget his exact words.....
 Our kids ALL want an ice cream cake...hmmm wonder who started that trend...heehee :)
 He LOVES cars, airplanes, and "big trucks"
 No one can open presents all by themselves!!


 The racing machines! haha!
 It is ON!

He is much more physical- he loves to run, climb, get dirty, you name it he is ALL boy and we LOVE it!! Even his sisters LOVE to take care of him.  He is definitely the most rotten of the bunch! lol!

Gymnastics








The girls have been blessed to go to a pretty awesome gymnastics center out here. NC State has a pretty renowned team and a lot of the girls teach classes around here. Lexi and Lauren have LOVED it and Lex can now ALMOST do a cartwheel!! :)

Valentine's Celebration 2011~ Magnolia Grill


Since we got to have essentially a "free" date night since mom was in town (paying the babysitter is the most expensive part of our date nights!!!) we decided to dress up and go out on the town! We have heard great reviews about a restaurant in Durham. It is listed in Food and Gourmet magazine as a top restaurant....yada, yada, yada. Well, the company was excellent but the food was just okay. Definitely not worth the price and we were literally stacked on top of other people. I could not fit through the space to get to the back chair...kinda crazy! We enjoyed the experience though and are SO glad we got to go out!! Thanks again Mom~

Snow tubing

 I could just EAT HIM UP! :)
 My fearless one....
 My one who with a little coaxing became VERY brave!
 This is the life~
 GO NANA!!
 They are ready for a blizzard! haha!






Mom flew out to see us in February~ We were THRILLED to see her!! We wanted to show her a little of the benefits of Raleigh...2 1/2 hours to the beach and 3 hours to the mountains. :) Since it wasn't beach weather we decided to take her snow tubing!!!! She is ALWAYS up to whatever you ask her to do....quite the trooper! It was SO fun....by NO MEANS is Carolina snow ANYTHING like Colorado snow but as Russ likes to say....It'll WORK! All 3 kids had their own tube by the end of it....at first Lauren was screaming to go down by herself and Lexi was screaming for me to hand on to her....it is often comical to see us out doing things!! Will of course was just along for the ride! It you ever have the chance to go to Blowing Rock or Boone, NC GO....it is just gorgous! Thanks mom for coming along and for always being up to whatever we ask you to do!

Learning experience....NEVER trust a guiet boy :)



Will is giving us a RUN for our money~ It is amazing how DIFFERENT each of our kiddos are....Will is laid back and loves to have fun but has a TERRIBLE temper.....totally received from his daddy's side of the family! haha! One afternoon I was cleaning and realized I had not been "bothered" in quite awhile....I went looking for my little man and found that he had SOAKED his hair in lotion!! He was SO proud of himself too!! It took DAYS for me to get his hair back to normal. We laughed over this for a long time!! Also, I have discovered my little man does not care to wear clothes.....a constant battle!! haha!

The Melting Pot



 The dessert you dip in different chocolates
 The appetizers- different cheeses...SO good!

 Main course- You boil whatever "meat/veggie" you want in certain(your chosen flavor) of spiced broths



Clinton and Dorla came out to celebrate the new year with us ( this was the only holiday Russ did NOT work this year.....actually he was on call New Year's Day but not New Year's Eve....we now have an appreciation for "normal call" Anyway....we got to treat them to one of our favorite restaurants in this area. It is a chain so if you ever run across it, try it out! Don't go if you have to take your kiddos or don't have a couple of hours to enjoy your company. It is a neat experience. It is a fondue restaurant- totally cool!!

New year, New ATTITUDE!

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas we the hardest of this entire year. I think after I came home and got loved on by all my friends and family and had some HELP with the kiddos it was SO HARD to come back. I knew I was coming back to crazy....running out the door at 7AM to be on time for work, dragging three kids from their beds and their poor feet never hit the floor as I rush them all over town, full-time work which I have not done in...some time....(didn't realize how CAKE I really had it :)) Russ working ALL the time, the exhaustion and negativity really caught up with me.
You know, all that I described above is NOTHING! How blessed I am to have my kids, my job, my husband that provides, a family and friends to miss, the LIFE changing work Christ is doing in my heart, my marriage, and our life.
I sat down prior to the new years and made my resolutions. I chose JOY~ JOY when I'm tired, joy when things don't go my way, joy when I feel like I can't do the crazy one more day, joy to focus on the REAL things of life. So Joy is my "word for the year" as inspired by K-Love to do....
Since 6 months have passed and I am just now catching up you can see it hasn't been easy to implement but it has been SO worth it!! I don't want to go back home the same person I was coming out- God is doing a work in us and I want it to be reflected each day that I am blessed with. Thanks for loving us and praying for us~ The prayers have made ALL the difference!

More Christmas Pics

 This girl is my heart!
 She is SUCH the daddy's girl....then again she is him in girls flesh!!
 Silly boy :)
 He is SO stinkn' sweet!!
 Over half her day is spent making others laugh with her crazy antics! :)
We had some fun and silly times that I wanted to share through pics during our Christmas break~

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Christmas in....Orangeburg, South Carolina

 He was SO proud of his tools :)
 Operation!!
 Let just say daddy needs to stick to REAL operating - haha!
 My future little cheerleader!


 Silly girl

 Christmas is wherever your family is!!


 Orangeburg has an AWESOME Christmas light display



 We made goodies for all the floors I work on at the hospital, the doctors, and our neighbors! LOVE IT!
We celebrated Christmas far away from anyone we even remotely know :) in a hotel room and had a frozen dinner for lunch- seriously!!....and you know what? It was a wonderful time! We were together and we are SO blessed! It was not how I would have chosen to celebrate Christmas but I did have the opportunity to CHOOSE to be happy and that is exactly what we did! We even went swimming! The hotel had an indoor pool we put to good use- since I am being positive I won't harp on the fact that Will fell in the pool while we were getting our stuff together and sank like a ROCK and I had to dive in and save him...literally! Yes it happened and yes, I will be moving on in this story......
Russ took call for the weekend but was not busy- we got snow on Christmas and we had IHOP which is a Raul's family favorite! The girls got bicycles and we got to ride them all over an empty parking lot which they and mama loved! We skyped with our parents, Tiff and Scotty,Russ' parents, and Robyn and Ken. That was really neat!
Hopefully, next Christmas we will be surrounded by the ones we love and I promise I will NOT take it for granted!! Love you all :)