Scripture

I decided to join Beth Moore in memorizing scripture. You can see what I am talking about here. I already have my first scripture picked out. I actually read it on the same blog one day and I have it here on my blog. It is Luke 1:45 - Blessed is she who believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. That is a pretty awesome scripture. I had this thing I had been praying about and then through our youth pastors sermon (You can read about that here.) I really felt such peace about this thing and so encouraged. I still do as a matter of fact. But shortly after that I saw this scripture on Beth Moore's site or blog. I knew that was for me that day. Just another reminder that God is taking care of that thing, and so many other things that God has shown me. I BELIEVE GOD! I believe what he has said to me. IT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED! Wow that is GOOD NEWS! Blessed is she (me) who believed that what the Lord has said to her (me) WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED! Let me just say again - WOW! So maybe you should join me along with Beth Moore and LEARN SOME SCRIPTURE! I bet the next one will be just as exciting to me. Find some that are exciting to you and get memorizing!

NOT ME!

• I did not read about, search, and fiddle with my new camera for at least an hour and a half, probably more, and involve my whole family trying to figure out how to be able to "see through the screen" what picture I am about to take. Only to find out that it doesn't work that way! (You look at the screen to see the pictures you have already taken.) I didnt do that because I know stuff about cameras and taking pictures. I love to do it and I am not that - um, whats a good word - unintelligent. So I guess that wasn't me.

• I do not STILL have my Christmas tree up because I am very organized and most assuradly already have it packed away nice and tidy.

• I did not make myself some Homemade Chicken Soup since I am sick today. And I have not already eaten two bowls of it in the last 3 hours. (It does make me feel better!)

• and last but not least - I DID NOT decide not to go to see my mom because I was WAY TOO NERVOUS about driving there by myself, and I was sick anyway, and mom had a doctors appointment tomorrow, and I had a ton of stuff to do here before I have to go back to work, and I didnt want Todd and Josh to have to eat out every day, twice a day while I was gone-because I am certainly NOT the only one who can cook in this house.

BUT I AM - ASKING EVERYONE TO PRAY FOR MY SWEET AVERY GRACE AS WE FOUND OUT TODAY THAT SHE AGAIN HAS THE DREADED RSV!
Please pray that her breathing treatments will do the trick and she will be well soon.
THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Inside the Packages

Well we certainly had a busy, loud, fun, packed in, blessed, wonderful time together this Christmas. Seeing Avery was such a blessing, knowing how different things could have been, would have been... She wasn't at all interested in opening gifts. As a matter of fact she was rather disgusted with us that we kept handing her things. LOL Once her mommy opened something for her she was pretty happy with playing with it, but really didn't want us to keep handing her things. She would just throw them out of the way. {Ooooh, mini sermon coming up!}- We can do God that way sometimes I guess. He may give us a package of something all tied up, wrapped up, and taped up. We dont know whats inside, so we chunk it out of the way. Maybe we will return to it later, maybe not. When really if we would explore and see what God is giving us, and go on and open it up, (even if we dont care for the color of the paper, or the bow on top, or the feel of the box), we can find great things inside his packages. Just a thought. One thing I found in a box - one I was VERY surprised about, was a NIKON D60!!!!!!! Honestly I couldnt believe it. We got a CAR if you remember! I was so hoping to win McMamas camera but I didnt, congratulations #68! Anyway when I didnt win it I figured all hope for that was gone, for a long while. But Lo and Behold! How exciting! I was floored! And now I will begin to drive my family CRAZY taking pictures! Thankfully Avery doesnt mind being the model yet! So here are some photos - well you didnt think I would let this post get by without them did you?

This is Avery discussing our Christmas festivities with her Poppa

Playing with my camera HOW PRECIOUS IS THAT?

What beautiful Blue Eyes - No they are not photo shopped, they really are Avery's!
Sitting in the middle of ALL her Christmas gifts
Tuckered out after all the hustle and bustle - An angelic Nap on Poppa

Food, food, and more food!

I just want to take a moment to say I have definitely been a cooking maniac the last several days! The day before Christmas Eve I made Po-Boys with Grilled Chicken and all manner of wonderful fillers inside there. Christmas Eve, I made Traditional Baked Turkey, Dressing (which was the bomb I may add, that's a good thing by the way.) Field Peas, Sweet Potatoes with Crunchy topping, Cranberry Sauce, Rolls, Tea, and Banana Caramel Pie. Yum, Yum, and again, Yum! Then on Christmas Morning I made Peppered Bacon, (which sounds delicious, but was the other package that appeared to be completely vacuum sealed, but was still not great!-no not great. {Growl, grumble, roar}, anyway on with the good stuff, Homemade biscuits, with all sorts of Christmas gift jellies, Scrambled eggs, Perfectly cooked grits, Juice, and coffee. Delicious, except for the bacon part. (I will be wanting a refund). Pretty much as soon as the breakfast mess was cleaned up I started the dinner. I baked a ham, Homemade Macaroni and Cheese, (Miss Penny's recipe and soooooo good!) Cucumber/Onion Salad, Cranberry Sauce again cause its so good with holiday meals, Potatoe Salad (Mawmaw actually made this at my house with my tiny bit of help, cause no one makes potatoe salad as good as she does.), Rolls, and Tea. Man was I full after that. I could have just eaten a whole plate of Macaroni and Cheese and been happy though. Then later that evening I made Wassail, which is my sisters version of Apple Cider. It is made with Cider, Cinnamon, Lemon, Nutmeg, Pineapple Juice and Honey. It has been a tradition in our family since my sister gave me the recipe years ago that we have it every Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. We LOVE it, well - we all LOVE it except for Josh, he's a little picky! No wassail for him. But the rest of us love the smell of it simmering and the hot cup in our hands while the steam rises and the wonderful taste just says "Holiday"! So now that all of that has been said, "written", I am here to say I am done cooking - tonight - we are EATING OUT! Hope your Christmas was GREAT! More later!

Not Me Monday

Okay it is again Monday! What a great Monday too. I am off! Woo Hoo
On with the "Not Me's"

I did not order peppered bacon from the schools Fruit and Meat Fundraiser only to discover that one pack of the bacon was not properly vacuum sealed.

I did not cook it anyway because it smelled fine.

I did not throw it out after eating some of it before discovering it was NO GOOD after all.

I am not at all concerned about cooking the other pack for our Christmas Breakfast even though it is completely vacuum sealed.

I did not miss the last step last night after leaving a Christmas Party and totally twist my ankle. No I didn't because no one saw it, so it didn't happen!

I definitely did not purchase another gift for one of my children {who will remain nameless} because I thought it was the last thing I needed, only to remember when getting ready to wrap it that I had already purchased it. No my memory is NOT going along with my sight! No it isn't!

I did not tell one of my dear friends that I would go somewhere with her to help her with her children, then find out Avery was coming to visit and cancel on her. No I did not do that because a GOOD FRIEND would never do that. Not me.

So on with your own "Not me's"

Wednesday Without Words

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I saw this on another blog - Mary Beth Chapmans - and decided to do it here. One more way for me to say what some others aren't - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

M - Mark made the deans list again at Louisiana Tech! Way to go Mark!
E - Ending this year and starting a new one leaves us wondering what God has in store for 2009.
R - Rain is still falling on our damaged roof from Gustav. We are suppose to get that new roof this week Lets hope so! (Rain rain, go away, come again another day.)
R - Relationships are what matter - Funny how as your kids get older your relationships grow. It's great.
Y - Yay Josh! Gearing up for Baseball. This will be the first time he has played for the school. No more basketball for him. Go Vikings!
C - Crawling never before brought such joy! I mean I loved when mine started crawling of course, but seeing a miracle crawl is an even greater joy!
H - He is an awesome God. We thank Him and Praise Him for His every wonder!
R - Really - we do!
I - I am blessed beyond measure to have this great family I have and I love them so much.
S - Seeing Casey with Avery is such a blessing all in itself. She is such a great mommy!
T - Todd works so hard and is a wonderful guy. I am so glad to be his wife.
M - Many of our family will be together on Christmas. I love it when we can all get together then. We will sure Miss everyone who cant be here with us. Merry Christmas to them as well.
A - A's that is what Josh has made on his report card this year so far, last year too, hmmmm, the year before too - Well there is a pattern there!
S - So that brings this little project to an end - Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Maybe you should do this too. If you do leave me a comment so I can read yours. Or e mail it out to me. Oh - did I say Merry Christmas - yea I did. Okay then.

Pray for Kayleigh

Please Pray for this little girl. You can click on her button on my sidebar. She really needs a miracle. We do serve a God of miracles. I have such a heart for these tiny babies since our experience with Averys birth. I know what God can do. I also know so much more now than I ever knew before about premature births and all the problems that go along with that. This sweet tiny baby girl needs your prayers, so take a minute and stop and lift her up to our Heavenly Father. Thanks

This is a picture of Avery and me. We are wearing our pink bracelets that we got from Kayleigh's parents blog. Well I am wearing mine and Avery is teething on hers. Hey it worked- today she has tooth number 2! Avery and I discussed that Kayleigh weighed exactly half of what Avery weighed when she was born. Avery thinks you should pray for Kayleigh too. So thanks again.

This weekend

This mornings sermon really hit the spot. Wow it was great. There is something that I have really been praying a lot about lately. I wont say what it is because it is about someone else. It is really hard to share about it since I cant say much but honestly the things that were said this morning just spoke right to me. He talked about how God created all of the stars and named each one. Remember when I blogged about that not too terribly long ago? Interesting. Anyway he said how GREAT - BIG - AWESOME GOD IS. It is that GOD that we pray to. The God that parted the seas, that created this world from nothing, that brought Jesus into this world through a virgin. It is GOD HIMSELF that we are asking these things. God can do it. It is not a problem to him to answer this prayer. I know that all sounds so elementary and DUH! But boy did I need to hear it. It just brought me to tears and I just really felt encouraged that yes, GOD CAN DO THIS. No matter what - end of story - it will be done. Maybe next week, maybe next year, maybe in 10 years. That part doesn't matter much, what matters is that God CAN AND WILL take care of it.
I hope you were encouraged by a sermon at your church this morning too.

Whats that you say? What else did I do this weekend? Thanks for asking. I went to see Avery Grace CRAWL! WOO HOO! And it was worth the trip. She is soooooo precious. I loved watching her get to what she wanted. God is so good. I just couldn't hug her enough. I enjoyed getting to watch her a little while so her mommy and daddy could get out of the house together for a little bit. Here are a few photos and a video from the visit.

"You mean to tell me that one of these presents is for me?"

Look closely and you will see the TOOTH!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And here is Avery crawling!

Christmas Memories

We are out of school today for a "Snow Day" which has so far turned out to be a rain day. But it is suppose to get to the more icy stuff later on in the day. We will see. For right now I am using my day off to do something I really love to do. Get the kids stockings ready. Of course the "kids" are as I said in the previous post 24, (Charlie's 24 too), 21, and almost 17. But YES they still get stockings filled on Christmas morning. I really really love that part. I even wrap the gifts inside. I always remember as a child seeing the wrapped gifts. I loved poking and shaking and guessing at each package. I have always wrapped all the gifts as a result of the wonderful memories of that. So yes, I even wrap the stocking stuffers. That has been my joy this morning. Today I hope you are doing something that brings back great memories or makes great new ones. Merry Christmas and have a great day!

Not Me

I did not already get three major Christmas presents while there are still 17 days left until Christmas!

I do not wish I could see Avery Grace crawling around!

I did not take another picture of my beautiful Christmas Tree using the candlelight setting and think it turned out GREAT! So I am not posting it here for you to see!


I did not make Mark a birthday banana pudding, instead of a birthday cake!

And I absolutely DO NOT have a 24 year old, a 21 year old, and an almost 17 year old! No way is that possible! So -no I certainly do not!

Some favorite ornaments as part of my Wordless Wednesday

Contest

I put this button on the right on my blog. What a cool idea for McMama to earn money for those causes. Her blog reaches tons of people and just overnight she has already raised a lot of money. Good for her. So anyway I made my donation and my name goes in the drawing! Woo Hoo! You can click on the button and get to her blog and learn more about the contest.

Thanks Nikki

Ooooh Thanks to Nikki for telling me how to get back to the right way to get the photos on! Thanks so much! So since I can- here are a few more pictures!

This is Avery enjoying her Uncle Mark

Each time we have a holiday turkey we have a contest to see who can break away the largest piece of the wishbone.
So this is the broken wishbone from this year. Who do you think won? Avery (with the help of Uncle Josh) on the right, or the reigning champion Mark on the left???
Here is the family photo from Averys First Thanksgiving! What a sweet little family!

I am having such trouble posting these pictures this time. Something has changed in the way it lets me post them. Before, I could see the actual picture to check and see if it was how I wanted it to look, but now the picture doesnt come up until I hit publish, and check out the blog. It only shows letters, numbers, and symbols. Crazy aggravating. Anyway so here are several random pictures because I cant do it another way tonight. Enjoy them.

Not Me

Well it is once again "Not Me Monday!" So here goes:

I DID NOT GET A NEW SILVER 2009 TOYOTA CAMRY THIS WEEK, or make a new car note because how in the world would I pay for it if I did!

I did not sit and tie ribbon around every single gift I have purchased which took probably 2 hours or more because I don't like bows and much prefer ribbon.

I did not put up my Christmas Tree and almost cry looking at all the ornaments from years gone by.

I certainly did not purchase yet another item that says "MERRY CHRISTMAS" because I HATE the way some people think we shouldn't say Merry Christmas at Christmas time. Remember the term "STOP THE INSANITY!"

I did not get completely frustrated with the roofers that HAVE YET TO REPLACE MY ROOF SINCE GUSTAV!!

I did not just yell that last comment.