Christmas Time

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

whirlwind,,,

i am going to be blogging more about the last week or so but here are a few highlights.

i just returned from san diego where i was attending a children's pastors conference. we didn't have time for the sun and sand but what an awesome time of encouragement as well as fresh ideas. i will share more about that later.

i asked you all to be praying for our brother and sister-in-law as they wait for a baby to adopt. praise God, the giver of all good things! last night they met and were chosen by a special birth mom who is having a baby boy in about 8 weeks!! thankfully we finished sewing all the linens for his nursery in the last couple of weeks. (pictures to come)

i am looking forward to sharing more details with you all, so hang in there and check back in the morning.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

pictures...

alright so this past week our friend, tonya took some pics of daphne and her best girl friend, ellie. the girls were ADORABLE!! they had a tea party with gloves, boas, tu-tus, pearls, the whole works. it was so fun to watch daphne and ellie be so girlie. ellie is definitely a girlie girl, with cute coordinated outfits and matching bows. daphne on the other hand loves to pull out her bows (mentioned in a previous post) and often times she likes to strip down. all that being said about my girl, she is still girlie in so many ways. she loves to play with her baby dolls and she loves to dress up like a princess- preferably cinderella, who is her favorite. after i get the pics i will post one of the girls.

tonya also took some headshots of me and jennifer for our business's website. tonya is a fantastic photographer. jen looked fantastic in her pics. the best pics of my kids have been done by tonya. but me...i am a hard one to photograph and that was evident when i looked at my 16 proofs. there were only two remotely decent of me. i found myself wondering if i even tried that morning...maybe i forgot i was having my picture made.

all that being said, i realize that my children don't care as much about what i look like as they do about my love for them. when i am dead and gone they will want pictures of me. the pictures i have of my parents and of ross' parents are things i like for them to see. i even have this great photo of my grandparents that is framed and on a shelf in my living room. i treasure photos and when i look at ones from my family i don't care about how the people actually look, i care about their story- their life.

have a great weekend!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

long time, no post...

wine tasting party

for the last four or five months ross and i have been tossing around the idea of hosting a wine tasting party for some of our closest friends. after the christmas season ended we started planning and this past weekend was the culmination of all of our ideas. it was fantastic party! nine years of marriage and i had never used my china until this party. we tasted four red wines from different regions, served prime rib and enjoyed friendship.
as i prepared the tables and was cooking the food i found myself stressing about wanting everything to be perfect. i did not want to have that "stressed out" look when our guests arrived so i was praying that God would help me relax and just enjoy the party. then i began to think about our purpose in hosting this party. as i have blogged before, i want to bring fame to God not myself. somehow in the preparations of this party i was trying to bring fame to myself. what great timing for God to change my heart and purpose in our party. as guests arrived i found myself truly enjoying the chance to serve them. i was blessed by the opportunity to sit around the table laughing and talking with our friends. i don't know if our party brought fame to God but i know that my heart was focused on that purpose.

thank you, Lord for the blessing of friendship and the chance to celebrate it.

our table- before and during the party

jennifer & john
allison & alan
nathan & abby
tod & catherine

five months old

anna is five months old today. she is still pretty content to not do any rolling...well unless she is really ticked off in her bed, then she rolls over. i have come to realize that we are so busy that she rarely has the opportunity to just lay around and practice rolling. in due time!she loves playing in her exersaucer. she sat in one for the first time at church on sunday so we pulled ours out and she sat in it tonight. she was having a good ole time before bed.


soon to move

in the coming months we will be relocating to northwest tucson, God willing. because of our role in our church plant we desire to be located in the general vicinity of what will be dove mountain church. our search is on for a home to rent with enough space for all of us. we will keep you posted on where we end up!

well this should get everyone up to speed on our world these days. i am working really hard to slow down and not over commit so i should be back to my normal blogging frequency. have a great week!


new blog coming...

don't give up on me. this has been a crazy two weeks. i will be blogging tonight with new photos! hang in there.

Monday, February 5, 2007

my mat carriers...

do you ever just long for that peaceful moment when you and your dear friend can share a cup of coffee together and talk about every little detail of your lives, good and bad? i sure do. there are only a handful of women in my life that i can do that with and it is so precious that a couple of those friendships began over 5 years ago and some only in the last 2.

today i was blessed by three of those relationships in three different ways.

one of these precious women served me by taking daphne for the morning so i could go up to the church and get some work done. anytime someone offers to care for my children, that act in my mind, is equated to washing my feet. truly, i believe caring for my children is a beautiful picture of serving. (my kids are awesome but they have their moments- some longer than others.) i treasure her.

another dear friend who lives WAY too far away chit chatted on the phone with me for quite some time about her joys and struggles as wife, mom and minister's wife. her words i treasure because she has always spoken Truth into my life. she has loved me and my family even knowing some of our yuckiest yuck. she encourages me, she challenges me, she prays for me. i treasure her.

lastly another sweet friend shared her feelings about our friendship with me. i know we are great friends but it was such a blessing to me to know that i meant as much to her as she does to me. i treasure her.

too often i let "busyness" take over and i forget to stop and use my words to tell my friends how God uses them to encourage me. my friends, both new and old, are amazing women who i laugh with, cry with, work with, pray with.

in matthew there is the story of a man who cannot walk and he has four friends. these guys hear that Jesus is in town and so they want to take their lame buddy to see Him. well since this guy can't walk they pick up the mat he is sitting on and they carry their friend. when they get to the house where Jesus was the place is packed. they were a determined group so they climbed up on the roof, cut a hole in it and then lowered their buddy down to Jesus. Jesus healed the man and told him to take his mat and walk.

there have been days when my mat had to be carried and these women have done that for me. there have been times when i have been able to help carry theirs. that is part of friendship... the good, the bad and the ugly.

thank you for your friendship- i treasure each of you. may our friendship be the blessing to you that it is to me!

Thursday, February 1, 2007

we were going to the mattresses...

if you have read ross' blog in the last couple of days you know that daphne has given up on sleep.

well, last night we were ready! we were going to the mattresses on this one. before bed we prayed with her and talked about not getting out of the bed in the middle of the night. let me tell you we were prepared for a battle...much like the one we had been fighting for the last 3 weeks. we were so prepared that my ingenious husband set up the pack-in-play in our closet for anna and then he put up the baby gate in daphne's doorway just high enough that she couldn't crawl under it and she most likely couldn't climb over it.

there is nothing quite like being prepared for a battle and not even having your enemy show up! praise the Lord, she stayed in her bed all night!!!!!!! at 6:45am we heard her sweet voice saying, "mommy, mommy".

ahhh, sleep. it does the mind good!!