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.