grumbling

I don't take change well. Especially where our finances are concerned. Today Scott got news that their pay schedule will be changing at work. While it does come with some options we've been wanting, he'll have to go 18 days without a paycheck. That stinks. We do keep a good budget, but it's still intimidating. In August, the month gas prices seem to soar, we'll have to go 3 extra days before he gets paid. And of course it's coming right when we need to buy school supplies and I'll be going on a short trip at the end of the month. I shouldn't be complaining I know. There are other families that are less fortunate than us and my heart goes out to them. Most people that work in the fast food industry don't get paid enough, and live paycheck-to-paycheck. Seems like making them go 3 more days before getting paid is not the right solution. So I plan on spending much more time on my knees, asking God to righten my heart about the situation and asking Him to provide not only for us, but for the other workers affected by this change. Thanks for "listening" to me. Just knowing this is a safe place to vent makes it better. Please keep this situation in your prayers.

saying goodbye

I'm beating myself up. And I was a bit miffed at God for just a slight moment today. I didn't realize today was the last Sunday. I was ready to say something amazing on this last day, and low and behold, it snuck up on me. I didn't even realize it. I'm mad at myself. I didn't have anything wonderful to say, nothing poetic came from my mouth. I just had this amazingly shocked look on my face and stumbled over some silly line that I can't even remember now. And then sadness came in. I did know it was coming today, I thought I had another week. I came home and talked to God for a bit and asked Him what in the world happened? I wasn't ready to say goodbye. Why hadn't He made me realize today was the last day? Why hadn't he prepared my heart for it?

The answer?

"You don't need to say goodbye yet dear one, it's not your turn"

That's when I realized I got that dorky-shock-weird look on my face because God was stopping me from making a mistake. It's not time to say goodbye to my friend because we will see each other again. I know we will keep in touch and I know God will keep us in each others lives. Our friendship, though new, will keep going and growing (Praise Him!). And even though it's somewhat new, and we're still getting to know each other, I love that girl like a true sister. So no, today was not the day we would say goodbye to each other. I still wonder if she thinks I'm weird sometimes, (let's be real, I AM weird sometimes!) but I see in her something I long to have myself. A true passion for Jesus Christ. With out a doubt, God put us in each others lives for a specific reason. I am so proud of their family for what they are doing. Seeking Gods will is not always a comfortable place to be in, but they have jumped out of the boat and are standing with both feet in the stormy sea. They won't sink. Their eyes are on the Lord and glory to His name, they won't look away. It's going to be an awesome sight to see what God has in store for them. I'm praying for you girl, and I love love love you!

I know it's cliche' but I gotta say it. :) It's not goodbye, God's told me it's 'see you later'.

very cool contest!

Thanks Debra for the heads-up! Go here to enter to win a Flat Screen T.V.!!! Whoo hooo! Big Thanks to Best Buy for giving this awesome prize! Good luck Sistah's! :)

our flowers

We have flowers. Lots of them! Well lots for us is relative. We have had a hard time with our little 'garden'. We live in an apartment, but lukily upstairs. If my husband couldn't have decorated our patio with lots of plants I don't know what he would do. He upset me early on because I had selected and planted a few flowers that I really liked. He also went to the store after I had potted my plants and found some that he liked. He went to work seperating and re-potting all my work, resulting in a loss of blooms on all of MY pretty flowers! Needless to say I was so upset. And I was SURE he'd killed my flowers. He's been assuring me this whole time that we'd have flowers, they just needed time. I was not happy. I wanted my flowers that I had spent the time and effort on. So we've been at odds with the odd green sticks growing on our patio. Finally (FINALLY!!!!) they began to bloom. He was right. And while the one plant I liked the most still has yet to produce pretty blooms, all the other plants on our patio have produced some of the neatest blooms I've ever seen! So now we're okay. :)

I wanted to share with you some of the pretty-pretties I look at every morning while I talk with God. Enjoy.

labels

We see them everyday. Everywhere you look, there they are. Bright and pretty, and ready for us to look at. At store's we're overwhelmed with them. Each company doing their best to "sell the product", make it stand out. Think for a moment about all the behind the scenes work that goes into created a label. Teams come up with the concept. Artist draw the sketches. Advertising companies come up with the sales pitch and slogans. Marketing comes up with the commercials and national ads. Ways to get their product noticed and get their image at the fore-front of your brain. All to say, "this is mine, and it's great! better than what's already out there, you NEED to have this."

I am stopping here and praying that this will fall fresh on your ears the way it did mine, because I want you all to experience the bear hug of love I got from my Lord. One that I'm still not ready to be released from. A new understanding of His love is what I've gotten from Him. And again this refreshing came from something silly my boys did, which peaked my interest into labeling things. To God goes the glory for using my sweet "big boys" to teach me yet again how much He loves me, and to teach me how to fall deeper in love with Him.

The boys were given new toy golf clubs from their friend that we babysat for a few weeks. They love them. And although identical in every way, they still argued over whose was whose. Finally my oldest said, "momma, you're just gonna hafta label 'em". We've been here before. So I got out the trusty old Sharpie and went to labeling each tiny piece of each golf set. Putting their name on their 'stuff'. Now when they want to play golf, they carefully inspect the pieces to make sure they each have their own. It's really cute to watch them. And they are very territorial. Neither one can touch the others toy. I've had to do this with a LOT of their toys. They want to know which is theirs. Because they want their own, not someone elses.

It really made me wonder why. What was so important? What was so different about THEIR toy that made them unable to share with each other? They were exactly the same, but each boy held one up higher than the other because it was theirs.

Ever hear of God Stops? Of course many of you have. But I had a different kind of God Stop. He stopped me dead in my tracks and said, "daughter, I wouldn't share you with anyone either". You see, as my boys were dead set on having their OWN. So is God. He wants His own children. So many times I've chosen to step out of God's will, do my own things. Share my 'toys' with someone else. What God made me see was that His name is written on my heart. He does not want to share me with anyone, He wants me all to Himself. To do His will. To be in His sight. To walk in His path. He created me. He formed me. For Him and by Him I remain on this earth. Because He wants me for His good, I still breath. While we are still the same on the outside, on the inside we are much different. We have His markings. We have His love. And the best part about wearing His label? We CAN share it. God doesn't put His sharpie away and only bring it out for the best. He keeps it uncapped and ready for whoever is willing. And not only will He not share us with the enemy, He'll keep us protected under His wing when the enemy wants to swoop in and take us. How awesome is that!

So many earthly labels are too awful to mention. We see someone who's too skinny, overweight, tall, short, pretty, not pretty, talkative, gossipy, mean, shy... etc., and we give them a label. Or people see something in us they don't like and give us a label. How many of those have you allowed yourself to wear? Has someone said something to you or about you that made you give yourself a label? How long will you wear it? Do you shove one off, only to pick up another and put it on your head? How long will you wear it? Take them off sisters. Rip them if you can. They mean nothing. The only label that will make any type of meaningful difference in your life is the label of Christ. Wear that one. Put it on your head, and hold it high. Share it with everyone you meet. Show them how they can have the love of Christ. How long will you wear this label? Forever. Forever and ever and ever. And it didn't take any sketches, marketing, or sales pitches. You see, this label is not written in ink with sparkly letters and pretty pictures. This label is written in blood. A blood that will never wash away. A blood that will turn you white as snow in the eyes of God. This label was written in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

And it's the only label I ever want to wear.

from the Lords lips

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!"

That's just what I plan to do today. Praise Him in everything. There will be a lot of clapping and singing in our house today, we've got a lot to praise Him for! Amen? If you're feeling down and out, have a praise day with me. Put on some music and get "jiggy" in praise to the one whose hands formed you. Lift those hands up high and sing to Him, He loves it! Let's start a party of praise in Heaven today Siestas! Send our love to our Father. Today's challenge is simple:

If you love Him, let Him hear it! Fill God's ears with sweet sweet praise and song.

ps - I'm still chewing on the word He gave, it's working out into a devotion and when I'm done I'll post. :)

the day wore on

Well the day did get a bit better. I ended up taking them to McD's so they could play and wear off some of that energy. It worked for a bit, but the one we're babysitting didn't take a nap and wasn't very pleasant in the afternoon. But God is good, it was an early pick up. :) My oldest didn't take a nap either and he wasn't much fun this evening. So I borrowed advice from those that commented on my earlier post. Tomorrow is play-group day. :) I think this morning we were all tired and cranky. Tomorrow will be better I can feel it. I'm claiming calmness, and I know that God will be faithful to give it. And I'm also claiming peaceful rest for all of us tonight. I spent some quiet time with God this evening, but I feel Him calling me back.

He's got a word for me tonight Siestas. How exciting! I'll share it with you tomorrow!

Thank you everyone for the comments, you're all very very sweet to a cranky Siesta and I love you for it!

pray for me girls

well I am just not in the best of moods today. I'm not having a hard time being motivated to do laundry, but I am having a hard time being motivated to be a focused mother. I feel like I've been inundated with kids for the past month. Is this the "summer-syndrome" all those moms talk about? All I want to do today is curl up, read a good book, and relax. Not possible. The kids are clingy and want to go to McD's. I'm contemplating it. Not sure I wanna take 3 kids to the playplace. But then again, it would keep them busy. Sigh.

I guess I'm just feeling blah. Typical Monday morning blah-ness. Coming down from a really fun Small Group at our house last night, where hubby made some really yummy burgers and we talked Parenting. Then I had a good meeting with the Lord last night and even cleaned off my patio where I can have a more comfy meeting with the Lord tonight. Yesterday was a great day. I love having people over and now that I'm keeping up with the house better, I don't feel so bad about having company. We had a fun time visiting with all our friends and of course Daniels best friend EVER :) came over and they had a blast in the play room with Recue Heroes and Power Rangers, and of course, Dinosaurs. So who wouldn't be tired after juicy burgers, potatoe chips, cookies, watermelon, hot dogs, pink salad, sodas, and friends? I think I'm just wishing my kiddos were just as tired as I am. Then we could all just nap. :)

shopping

So much fun!! We went shopping with some amazing ladies from church tonight and it was soooo much fun! We all had dinner together at Spaghetti Warehouse, Yum! And then hit the stores! We found some great sales. Mom got the cutest outfit! An adorable shirt, some pants, and some to die for shoes! I'm so proud of her! She got it all for MUCH less than retail. The sales lady told her she saved $118 off retail!!!! Now you can't beat that! I did find a few things that I liked, but ended up not buying anything. I wasn't too in love with any thing in particular. There was one pair of shoes that I really wanted to go back for, but I was too afraid that I wouldn't be able to stand up for very long in them. They were on clearance for $10 and had a "take an additional 20% off" tag on them, which would have made them $8. Everytime I think about it I think what a shame it is that those shoes are still on the shelf. Is the pain worth spending $8 on a cute pair of shoes? I can easily be talked into walking right back in there and getting them. LOL! They were cute, and I could walk in them, just not sure if I could stand still in them. Girls, I may go back for the shoes. Seriously, they were that cute. Anyway, we had a blast tonight! We got to know our new youth ministers wife a little better. She is going to fit in great with our "crowd". I think she had a good time. We laughed a LOT, (so much I was afraid we were going to get tossed out of Dillards!) and really had a fun fun time. We stayed till the mall closed, ran into Ernest and Debra (Debra looked so cute!) and saw a few more people from church. And we even got the girls at C.J. Banks to laugh and cut-up with us for a bit. It was so much fun shopping. We split into groups but kept running into each other which of course meant getting to show Mom's cute stuff off a few times. :) She's seriously going to look so cute! I can't wait to see her all dressed up in her new outfit! What is it about shopping that makes me so relaxed? Or is it that I was with so many of the women I cherish? I have not laughed so much in a long long time. And I came home with TONS of energy so I think I may do some scrapbooking or reading. Or I may just pace the floor till the mall opens tomorrow and I can go get my shoes. LOL! Help me Lord, I'm a shop-a-holic!

nickels

David is really into earning money right now. And not just any money, nickels. He loves them. Does anything he can to get one and then carries it around with him all day. One of his friends at church said they were his favorite coin, and all the sudden they are David's too. Isn't it funny how it works like that? Anyway, so we've been talking about little chores that David can do around the house to earn him an allowance. At the end of the week he'll be able to spend his spoils, after taking out Jesus money of course. When I was explaining this to him, he started asking about Heaven. He wondered how many nickels he'd have in Heaven and what all he could buy. I explained to him that in Heaven there won't be any money because God will provide everything we need. He got very upset and started crying. When I got him calmed down enough to tell me what was wrong, my sweet boy uttered these words....

"That's the saddest thing I've EVER heard mommy! Nickels are my favorite thing in the world!"

It was so cute I had to giggle. Then I told him that maybe God would have a whole bucket of nickels there waiting on him. So to that he said he'd pray and ask God to save up all the nickels in Heaven just for him so that when he got there he could have a bucket full of nickels from God. How precious is that! And it got me to thinking.... will I have a bucket full of coffee beans waiting on me? What will my bucket full of Heavenly goodness be filled with? Chocolate? Scrapbooking treasures? What a fun anticipation!

What do you think will be in your "bucket"?

my favorite layouts

here we go

Update:

We had so much fun! It was a wonderful time! The food came out GREAT! (I'm not biased, I got rave reviews, even from my hard-to-fill kids!) and the conversation just kept right on rolling. The kids had a BLAST playing with their new friend who at one point was knee deep in rescue heroes with a bright yellow construction hat on. She's going to get along great with our boys! :) I'm so excited! It's been WAY to long since we've had friends over for dinner. We're definatly going to have to make this a regular thing! Yay! I'm so so excited! New friends, good food, and a great night. God is so good to me! :)

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Oh goodness... We're having people over for dinner. I have not invited anyone to dinner at our house in 4 years. ACK! Not because we haven't wanted to, but because we have a small house. Well there's a really sweet new couple at church and we're watching their daughter for a few weeks and I wanted them to come see the house and get a feel for the place before dropping her off. Just something I'd want to do before leaving my kids for the first time. Anyway, now I'm a nervous nelly! I have really been focusing more on cleaning my house, so it's clean and there's not much to worry about on that end. But what will people think of my home? Clean yes, but what else? Will they like my decor? Will they enjoy my cooking? EEEEKKK!! I know it will all be fine, but there's just something about having people over for the first time that gets at my nerves. So I'll be asking God for calmness today. I'm excited to have some new friends over, and I'm really happy to have people in our home again. So I'm going to hang on to that and not let my nerves get the best of me. I'm even pulling out board games and dusting them off. Oh man, what if they don't like board games?? Lol, pray for me Sistahs'!

passion

Friends I am so excited! God has stirred something in me that I just can't let go! I am more excited than I have been in a while. Through the whirlwind of scriptures He gave last week, He is giving me something fresh, something new to write on. I have another book idea in my head. While I'll be working on both, this one is going to get done quicker. I can feel it. The research is coming together. I'm going to be perusing more of God's word this week than I ever imagined. It's happening! I'm even able to do the bulk of my source finding on the web and then will spend the better part of this week sorting out what scriptures God wants me to use for what purpose. Oh this is so exciting! Isn't it awesome when God speaks something over you and you get to watch it come about?? I can't wait to dive into my study of His word this week. I'm more excited than ever to keep going! Rest assured, the book of devotions will still be written. God is giving me the peace to work on them both. One He has told me will go much quicker than the other. One is to be done now. The other will take time. I'm okay with that. :) God is good and all things come through Him. I'm just blessed to be on the ride!

fun days

Goodness, seems like it's been forever since I've posted! We have been pretty busy the past few days so I haven't had much time to sit and write. We had our first ever family board game night. The boys got to pick out one game each from the store and we came home, made yummy sandwiches and settled in for a night of family fun. We had a blast! The boys loved playing games at the table so much, we'll definatly make this a repeated thing. We topped the night off with some ice cream from Dairy Queen. Can we say chocolate-covered-cherry-blizzard..... oh man, sooooo good! :) We've really been making an effort to make sure we have at least one family night a week since Scott has been working more hours. His schedule is so up and down sometimes it feels like we go days without seeing him. So now more than ever we're realizing the importance of family togetherness time. Even sitting down and watching a movie with the boys seems to bring them more calm and peace. And in turn our relationships with them have grown deeper.

Have you ever felt like you're running from something? And as long as you keep running it won't catch up with you? But if you ever stop, even for a second, it will swallow you whole? I've had that feeling for the past few days and I can't explain why. Like I have to stay one step ahead, but at the same time like I've forgotten something monumental, and it's going to come crashing in on me any second. Almost like a panicked run, but from what I didn't know. Last night when I got to stop and rest with my family, the feeling went away. I didn't have to run, nothing was chasing me. But for the oddest reason, I felt like I was running away from something about to cave in on me. Relax is what the Lord told me. Relax daughter. You're all right. And I did. I'm sure my sigh of relief could be heard for miles. It wasn't something scary chasing me, it was God. He was trying to slow me down, show me what I was missing. Or rather, what I was about to miss. I am so grateful to my Father for stopping me, turning me around and showing me that there was space for me to relax. Stretch out, breathe, have some fun, and enjoy this time with my family. I cherished every minute of it. Even soaked up the times both boys were upset because they couldn't make a match on their memory game. (For a second there I thought my memory had gone! That game is hard!) By the end of the night, we were all laughing and had had a great time together. Another great feat last night... most family nights the television has stayed on if we were at home. Last night, it went off. The only voices heard were our own and there were no intrusions of bad news, weather reports, or indecent commercials. It was just us. Just our family. Sweet sounds of dice rolling, children counting how many spaces to move, and then cheering when they hit a ladder or chute. They're not prefferable, they just like to land on either.

So here's my lesson :) , when you feel like you're being chased, running so fast that you can't stop, fearful of what's behind you, turn and look to the Lord. Listen to what He has to say. He could very well be the one chasing you telling you to turn around and see what you're missing!

Don't lose out. Stop. Turn. Listen. Relax. God is in control, sisters.