I've been keeping something from you......

I bought my new embroidery machine and I've had it for 3 weeks and I'm just now telling you about it. Honestly I was struggling so much with it that I wasn't sure I was going to keep it. However, I've done lots of reading and learned from my mistakes and had a friend come show me the ropes and now I LOVE IT. I've done 3 successful designs today. It's fun. I'm so excited to actually be up and running and not having so much trouble. It wasn't the machine it was me. It's different than my old one and I was trying to treat them the same and it was not working. Anyway, I did make a diaper bag and burp cloth for a friend. The burp cloth is cotton on one side and pink fleece on the other. Here are the pics:

Renewal Music

I was talking with a new friend tonight. Our daughters are in dance together and she and I and one other mother have really been enjoying getting to know each other. It's been lots of fun and I've learned lots from them already. Anyway we were talking about our vow renewal (you can read about our renewal here )and the music we used. I thought I would share it here. Sadly I was not able to find Rita Springer's version of these songs on playlist, so I had to use someone else's. I don't like them near as much as her versions. She's amazing. The songs are playing on my player and here are the lyrics.

You Are Still Holy

Holy, You are still holy

Even when the darkness surrounds my life

Sovereign, You are still sovereign

Even when confusion has blinded my eyes

Lord, I don't deserve Your kind affection

When my unbelief has kept me from Your touch

I want my life to be a pure reflection

Of Your love

And so I come into Your chamber

And I dance at Your feet, Lord

You are my SaviourAnd I'm at Your mercy

All that has been in my lifeUp 'til now

It belongs to You

You are still holy

Holy, You are still holy

Even though I don't understand Your ways

Sovereign, You will be sovereign

Even when my circumstances don't change

Lord, I don't deserve your tender patience

When my unbelief has kept me from Your truth

I want my life to be a sweet devotionTo You

And so I come into Your chamber

And I dance at Your feet, Lord

You are my Saviour

And I'm at Your mercy

All that has been in my lifeUp 'til now

It belongs to You

I belong to You

And You are still holy

When I Think About the Lord

When I Think about the Lord,

How He saved me,

how He raised me,

how He filled me,

with the Holy Ghost.

How He healed me,

to the uttermost.

When I Think about the Lord,

how He picked me up and turned me around,

how He placed my feet on solid ground

It makes me wanna shout,

Halleilujiah,

Thank you JESUS,

LORD, your worthy,

of all the glory,

and all the honor,

and all the praise...

I just love these songs. I feel like they totally capture where we've come from and all the Lord has done for us. If you want to hear the Rita Springer version you can try youtube or select her as a station on http://www.pandora.com/ (internet radio). If you haven't tried pandora yet, I highly recommend it. You put in all your favorite artists and it will play them and artists that it believes are similar. It's really neat.

Dog Gone It!

Well, as you may or may not know. This is a pet friendly household. We have 2 dogs and a cat (and just returned home to a dead fish). One of our dogs has decided that she does not like cars to drive down our road if she is in the house. When she is outside she really doesn't care. Living in an old home, we have windows that go to the floor and are single pane. I'm forever trying to get that dog to stop jumping on my windows. Maybe she just taught herself a lesson. One day not long ago Kelsi tossed a book up onto her bed (she's our bookworm) and it bounced off and hit the window, causing a small break in the glass, kind of like you would expect if it had been shot by a bb. I guess that weekend the glass. Yesterday Maddie jumped on the window and it shattered. I heard the glass breaking and ran to check it out. I was soooo mad that I sent her straight to the laundry room and I went to inspect the damage. It wasn't until later that I realized she had cut herself. On a dog there is a small pad in what I would call the ankle area and she cut herself just above that. It was a pretty bad cut, but I could tell it wasn't the kind that could be stitched, so we just closed it the way it should be and bandaged it up very well. This morning when I got up she had chewed on her bandage and bled through it. So, I took her to the vet and lo and behold she had to have minor surgery. They had to sedate her, remove the pad, then pull the skin together and stitch it up. We will have to take her back to the vet every couple of days for a bandage change for the next week and a half to two weeks and she will be on an antibiotic. It was so strange leaving the vet with my dogs collar and leash in my hand, but not my dog. I actually teared up a little. I called this evening to check on her and everything went well and we can pick her up tomorrow afternoon.

What in the world would I ever do without all of this excitement?

Our Crazy Trip

Well our trip was interesting to say the least.

We headed out very early Saturday morning. Went to the airport to pick up our full-size rental and were blessed with a free upgrade, so we traveled in one of these:

It was a cute little Jeep Patriot.

We got into Mobile and checked into our hotel room. We stayed in a Quality Inn and were fairly pleased. There were some things that could have been improved, but for the price it was really what we needed. We had a room with a king sized bed and a double sized sofa bed, which worked out really well. Mason slept with us and the girls slept on the sofa bed. We left he hotel and spent an hour at Patrick's parent's house. Then we headed downtown to a parade. Traffic was horrible and I was so stressed by the time we actually found a parking place, which we paid $10 for. We drove through a very full parking garage and I thought we might not find a place unless it was maybe on the top floor. So, I just asked the Lord to find favor with us and give us a place and on that same row on the ground level floor someone pulled out and we were able to get a parking place very near the exterior exit which sat right next to the parade route. The parade was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast.

When it was over we left and headed to a restaurant for supper. My brother and sister-in-law were parked on the top floor and we made it to the restaurant long before them. We already had our table at the restaurant and they were still stuck on the top floor of the parking garage. They called and my sister-in-law jokingly asked me to pray that they would get out of the garage. They had been trying to get off the top floor for 30 minutes. So, I prayed and within 5 minutes they were out of the garage. Just more proof that God cares about the small stuff. We had a very good dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant. After dinner we headed to the hotel to go to bed. At 2:30 in the morning I woke up and heard Kelsi in the bathroom vomiting. I headed in there to take care of her and began to feel sick myself and before long Keeli was feeling horrible too. We were all up the entire night. I made a 4:30 a.m. run to Wal-Mart to pick up some stomach bug necessities. Around 7 I was able to sleep for an hour or so. Mason did not feel great that day either. So, as much as we hated it we had to make the decision not to visit with any family that day. The girls just felt too bad and at this point I was certain we would be contagious. I called our ped. here in Huntsville and they called in some medicine, so I headed back to Wal-Mart to pick it up and picked up a few inexpensive toys and a card game as well. So, we spent the entire day in our hotel room. Then we headed home on Monday. We were able to stop at Patrick's parent's house for another hour before we left Mobile.

The great thing about this trip though was how we all looked at what had happened. We all realized how much we had been running lately and feeling tired and overwhelmed. We just all felt really grateful to God for how He knows best. Even though we did not feel well, it was so nice to have a day to spend with just each other and to be able to get some much needed rest. God is so faithful. I was very proud of all of my family and how they all realized what the Lord had done for us and how good it had been for all of us.

We're still not feeling totally up to par, but are definitely on the mend.

Hope you all have a great week. Many blessings!

Heading South

Well, we are about to get in the van and head to Mobile for a short trip. We're leaving this morning and will return on Monday. Patrick's family lives there and they always want us to come down for Mardi Gras. Mobile's Mardi Gras is MUCH different from New Orleans. It's very family friendly. This week has been crazy and this trip is proving to be very expensive. We had some issues on the last trip with sleeping arrangements, so since I'm overly tired from the crazy past two weeks and really need some rest, we will be staying in a hotel. My van has also been making a funny noise. It's probably no big deal, but Patrick didn't have time to figure out the problem, and after having car trouble on the way home three times in the last 13 years, we've decided to rent a car. My work week was also so nuts that I am actually taking work with me. Please be praying for us, that we would have safe travel, that the children would all get along well and safety for all of them (last time we were there my nephew broke his arm). Please also pray that it will be a good visit, with no drama, and that God would continue to open doors for us to share our faith while we are there. Last time we were there we had some awesome conversation with Patrick's brother and his wife.

Also, please be praying for the Mardi Gras invasion mission trip. There are quite a few people from our church campus that have gone, including my younger brother. Pray for safety for all of them, that all would go smoothly and that many hearts would be turned to the Father.

Be Blessed!

Yvonne Welch

I will be attending a women's retreat in March. Each year our homeschool cover puts together this retreat that is always a little bit about homeschooling, but mostly about godly womanhood. I usually come home refreshed, craving more of the Lord and more of His word and equipped with much needed info on how to walk out who He has called me to be. This year the speaker is Yvonne Welch. She has an amazing testimony of how the Lord brought her out of bitterness, anxiety and depression (much like my own testimony). She was a guest back in the summertime on Revive Our Hearts and my friend encouraged me to listen to her. Well I did and it was great! She has a outline that she uses for her quiet times that a wise older lady gave her many years ago and she still uses it today. My friend has started using it and I think I'm going to give it a try as well.

You get a notebook and you write the word PRAISE and then 5 things you want to praise Him. for. Then you write CONFESS and write 5 things you need to confess to Him. Then THANKSGIVING and write 5 things you are thankful for. Then INTERCESSION and write 5 things to pray about for others. Then SUPPLICATION (def.-humble prayer, entreaty, or petition) and write 5 things you want to pray about. Finally you write PSALMS. You will begin reading in the beginning of Psalms and every time you come across an attribute of God you will write it down, until you have written 5 attributes. The next day you will stop where you left off and each day you will write down only 5. The goal here is for you to truly come to know the character of the Lord.

You can listen to her or read the transcripts here: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/topics/series.php?series=237&topic_name=Forgiveness

You can print an outline of the Quiet time outline here: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/topics/downloads/index.php?id=9966

Please Pray

I just received a text message and missed call from a wrong number. The text message was very disturbing. The woman needed help. Said she had been beaten by a man. That he pulled a gun on her and tried to strangle her. I called her back to see if she was ok and if I could help her. Her adult daughter was with her and she said there was nothing I could do. She was totally distraught. She cried uncontrollably the entire time I talked to her. I prayed for her before I got off the phone with her and told her she could call me anytime. I also told her I would continue to pray for her. I wanted to ask all of you to do the same. Her name is Missy and that is all that I know about her. Please keep her in your prayers.

So Far...

I've gotten a lot done but didn't make it to the fun Girls Night Out at our main campus. I know it would have been a blast, too.

I did however finish the diaper bag I was working on and got one poodle skirt done (minus the poodle).

I'm up ridiculously early in the morning (It's about 5:00 and I've been up since 3:30 with a stomach ache). I really need to get a couple more hours sleep because today is a pretty big and busy day. I have to make biscuits and chocolate gravy for the girls breakfast (same sort of concept as chocolate covered pretzels). The kids and I love it, Patrick doesn't eat hardly any sweets and detests cake, so chocolate gravy is not very high on his list. Then we will be leaving here around 10:30 to head out for an early lunch. Of all places the girls want to go to Western Sizzlin for lunch. We get to watch Talan for a half hour or so while my sister-in-law is taking her piano class (Something she has always wanted to do, so my brother really encouraged her to go for it.) Then the girls are getting their hair cut at 1:30. I'm planning on doing a bit of fabric shopping while I'm in town. So, I probably will be back home around 4:00 or 4:30 and will have to head back out for church around 6:00. At some point I need to get a little work done as well.

Please pray that I will get to feeling better and that the weather will not turn nasty. I really want the girls to have an awesome birthday.

Hope you all have a great day. Many blessings!

And She's Off.......

to the races. Or at least that's what this week is making me feel like.

Saturday, I had an awesome day with my family. I was doing some fabric shopping and they all came with me. Then we went to the Madison County nature trail. We love it there and it was such a gorgeous day outside. I love hanging out with them. Especially when there's nowhere we have to be, so we can just do whatever we want. It was a great day.

Sunday, my sweet niece was dedicated at our church. Afterwards, we went to my Pappaw's house for lunch to celebrate his 94th birthday.

Yesterday I did some sewing and went to my great-uncles funeral. It was sad, but neat. Our family has a tremendous Indian heritage, so there was a lot of that incorporated into his funeral. He was 93 years old. Extremely active. He even bowled 2 games on his 93rd birthday. He lived a very full life right up to the very end. He died very suddenly and honestly, we are all certain that is exactly how he would have wanted it.

Today, I have to finish sewing a diaper bag for a friend (I was going to make her burp cloths, but she requested a diaper bag). I have to make 2 poodle skirts for my girls and plan my co-op class. The washer repair man is coming AGAIN and tonight our ladies group at church is having a special night at the main campus.

Tomorrow is my girls 11th birthday. I'll be taking them out to lunch and then they will be getting their haircut and of course church. I think we will get to see Talan for a little bit tommorow.

Thursday is co-op and dance. I will also have to take care of some errands before I come home.

Friday night the girls are having a joint birthday party with a friend at our church. It's 50s themed. Hence, the poodle skirts.

Saturday, NOTHING!!!!!

Sunday, church and birthday lunch for my girls at my Mom's.

Somewhere in all of the madness I have to get some work done too. It's total craziness, but most of what I have to do I love doing anyway. So, I'm going to try to focus on the fun stuff. Focusing on my wonderful girls is easy.

I hope to post later this week about their birth. They are truly miracle babies.

Hope everyone else has an amazing week. Be blessed!!!

Happenings

Well, the guys didn't quite finish the roof on Saturday. Most of them had somewhere to be, so all of them except my brother were gone by 2:00. Patrick and my brother worked and got it almost completely finished before dark.

We went that night to my cousins house and had homemade pizza night with her family. It's kind of a tradition we have with them. The pizza is always fabulous and the company is great, too. It's nice when you have a family you can get together with and everyone clicks, so the whole family has a blast.

Sunday we went to church. Patrick and I worked in Kidsquest. Then we headed home so he could get the roof finished. One of the guys from church came back and brought his two sons and they knocked the rest of it out quickly. All of these guys were just Godsends, but I was super impressed with these two teenage boys who were so willing to lend us a hand. They worked really hard. Patrick got everything cleaned up and came in to watch the super bowl. We all hung out with him while he was watching it, because we missed him so much while he was working on the roof all weekend.

Monday, I had a good bit of work to complete. Finally got all of that done.

Tuesday I got tons done around the house (still lots to be done, though.) We had a great family night last night. We worked on a puzzle before supper, had really good conversation during supper, and piled up on the couch and watched TV together until time for the kids to get in the bed.

Today, I got up this morning and yelled at my kids then came in my room and cried. I haven't yelled at them in ages. I just got totally fed up with the arguing today. The stuff they argue about just blows my mind. Today it was about instant oatmeal. Not fun. I also got out and went to town for a very short time. Patrick and I had decided that now would be a good time for me to get my new embroidery machine. So, I went to town to get it, but they wouldn't honor the price that I found. So, I came home and ordered it. The price was just too good, it was almost $300 savings, with free shipping and no sales tax. So, I saved a lot of money by ordering it instead and it should be here by Friday or Monday. I also ordered some really neat software for it and saved about $60 by shopping around online instead of buying it in town. Can't wait to get it. I've got a couple of projects to do and it's really going to be helpful for those, plus a lot of fun. The best thing about today though, is that I have my sweet niece at our house for a while. It's my first time keeping her without her Mom here and I am so excited. Her mom had some things she had to do today and it was just easier for me to keep her than it was to get her in and out in the cold multiple times. She's precious. We already took some pics of her, fed and changed her and got her back to sleep. I love it. Tonight we have Little praisers at church. Patrick has babies and 1's and I've got the 2's thru 5's.

Guess, I better get busy. Gotta plan for my class tonight and my co-op class tomorrow, make sure the girls have their dance stuff ready for tomorrow, make sure they know all their verses for tonight, get supper done and to top it all off tomorrow is billing day. Can you say BUSY! I guess I'm used to it now though, it doesn't bother me near as much as it used to. Hope ya'll have a great rest of the week.

Be Blessed!