Mickey D's baby! Yum yum! I've never eaten anything containing so many empty calories.... seriously, I love me a good double cheese burger, but it's a bad sign when you are still hungry after one and a medium fry! Oh welllll..... we're off to set sail so who really cares anyway?
Me and my man. =) I LOVE this man!
Rock on Bobby! My cousin that we came to see =) Boy I'm really cheesin it here.Bet you find that to be an interesting title. Last Saturday evening my hubby Jason and I got to have one of the first date nights we've had in months. I was totally looking forward to this evening but also keenly aware of the fact that Satan was too. Though he of course was looking forward to sabotaging it because that's what he does best. Knowing this I decided it was necessary for me to be praying over this night in advance and that's exactly what I did. Feeling confident going into the evening Jason and I began our exciting date.
It all started out dandy. We went to this nice Mexican restaurant that has these amazing margaritas. I kinda like margaritas ;). So we were going to each have A drink and then go get sushi elsewhere. Rule number one, if you decide to involve alcohol, in ANY amount though I suggest moderately, you better be even more careful because that guy Satan can really trip you up. He'll throw one little bomb at ya and if your not ready it'll blow your night up. Welllll I thought I was ready, obviously I was OVER confident and totally fell for his trap. I wont get into the details but it was a disaster and ruined the night.
However, it wasn't a total loss. Yes, that evening was. And yes I woke up the next morning and mourned the whole evening and what had happened. But we were fortunate enough to make up before morning even came and then were able to try it again Sunday afternoon. And it was a success this time. We even got our sushi in!
The funny thing about us fighting is I feel like we needed it. We hadn't fought in awhile actually, and since then we've been all lovey dovey. Which I know isn't what "love" is but it's nice to feel that way toward a person you've been with for 8 years, know what I mean? We've been wanting to be together, more affectionate, more passionate, more intimate and I am extremely grateful for it. And I seriously think it was triggered by the fight. It's like we've been in make up mode for the last week. Satan thinks he won that battle but I have news for him, it back fired! I would trade one fight for a week of married bliss any time. And praise God for forgiveness. He designed it. He wired us to respond this way when true forgiveness takes place. And I also thank Him for my husband. The fight for the most part was my fault, and I can tell you a lot of men would have looked at me and said "You crazy woman get out of here!" but God has blessed me with a husband who's mercy index is far greater than mine. I'm so thankful for that.
This to me is just one example of why we need Christ in our marriage. If we weren't both in relationship with Him it would have all played out much differently. Marriage is best when Christ is at the center of it.
Normally when I have my quiet time, it's not very quiet. I used to be able to do it consistently at nap time but then Micaila quit consistently taking a nap. I would love to say I get up every morning before the girls to spend time with Jesus alone. But since our move to my parents, the transition hasn't been easy on Micaila and she hasn't been sleeping well at night. In fact, she started having these "night tremors" I guess is what they call them. Anyway, her not sleeping, means me not sleeping, which makes for one worn out mommy in the morning. Which I know my Gracious Father understands =)
Today though, they both are taking nice long naps. And me and Jesus got to sit down and catch up. I found myself thanking Him a lot today. "God why are you so good to me?" I certainly haven't done anything to deserve it. Thank you Jesus.... one thank you after another. I was reminded of a song, that my sister in law actually sang at church. It's by Casting Crowns called Blessed Redeemer. This song just broke me.
"Father, forgive them," my Savior prayed
Even while His lifeblood flowed fast away
Praying for sinners while in such woe
No one but Jesus ever loved so
I was weeping, tears just streaming down my face. Because the reality once again is that we don't deserve His salvation. And I continually wonder "Why did you do this for us?" And I know it's because of His LOVE for us. I thanked Him today for being Faithful, always, even when I am not. He is always there for me, waiting. And I am so grateful for that. When I don't "feel" like meeting with Him, He waits. Good news is He will even work in me so that I will feel like it. Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. His good purpose being that I spend time with Him, getting to know Him, loving Him, so I can be equipped to love others to Him as well.
Thank you Jesus for being my Blessed Redeemer and for loving me the way You do.
Found a great fun way to use those Jelly jars when you eat it all up. Let your kiddos paint them! But make sure you don't get finger paint because as I found, it peels off. I believe some sort of non toxic acrylic paint (if they have that) would work well. But Micaila still had a lot of fun painting and then we stuck a flower in it! I think I might do a piggy bank next go around. Start teaching the kids, saving, tithing, and being good stewards of their money! ;)
Okay so I'm a little behind posting pictures from my wonderful mother-in-laws birthday. I didn't get many but here are the ones I did get. They are pretty cute ones.
Linda and the girls, great face Micaila =)
PawPaw (Randy) and the girls. Love this one.
She was spinning around making herself dizzy, lol.
And on that birthday note, let me share with you what we DID for Linda on her special day. Who out there loves the picture dvd's with music as much as I do? And who, like me, can never figure out how to do them easily? Maybe I just never really tried but it seemed like it was always so difficult to arrange the pictures and get MuSiC to play in the background. Check this out: Photo Story 3 for Windows. You can download it for FREE and it's super user friendly. We made a really sweet DVD for mom and set it to some of our favorite mom songs. We bought a stack of blank dvd's from Big Lot's for 2.99 and wrapped it up with her new Brighton Charms. (Another great gift idea for gmas!) Give it a try, Linda loved it. =)
When my husband and I moved out of our last home we had decided that we were not going to get cable in our next. It just seems like you can't just do "basic" any more. At least not us. We would start with the best of intentions to just get basic, but than we get sucked into "DVR Mode" and "Oh I wish we had that extra channel!" If we have the cable box we know what we're missing, but I'm thinking we should go for the out of sight out of mind approach.
It's gonna be a tough one I tell ya. Because I wont sit here and lie to you saying my girls never watch tv. Micaila, my 3 year old loves tv. She also loves to read, and color, and paint, and play outside. But when she isn't doing those things, she loves tv. She loves her morning cartoon fest, (and I do too). It gives us all a chance to wake up because neither one of us like talking to much in the morning. Not to mention tv has allowed me to get many things done that I otherwise wouldn't be cabable of doing with a 2 and 3 year old tugging at my legs.
Okay so now that I've confessed that I use tv as a sitter sometimes, ;) let me say that our decision to not get cable wasn't strictly from a money saving perspective. There are draw backs to tv that especially in the future I can see as more of a problem. Like you can't always monitor everything that comes on the tv. The commercials alone these days make me sick at points. Fortunately Nick Jr. doesn't broadcast Victoria Secret, geez louisse!
We've come up with a great solution. Because we recognize that we probably won't like having just 4 channels that our rabbit ears pick up. (Does that method even still exist?) You can purchase Netflix for 9 dollars a month. It's probably more beneficial if you have the internet because you can instantly watch stuff on your computer as much as you want. And if you have the Wii you can have it hooked up to your tv and watch stuff that way. You dont even have to deal with returning anything. But there are things that you would have to check out to watch, like for example, I think I'm most excited that Netflix carries EVERY SINGLE season of Beverly Hills 90210!!! Yes, it's my guilty pleasure. Note: I recognize there is absolutely nothing redeeming about this show. But I'm hooked, since I couldn't be when it was out back in the day.
So here I am promoting Netflix to you all. I think it's a pretty great deal. Especially if you too are looking for an alternative to spending 60, 80, 100, dollars a month on cable.
It's been a little while since I've been able to sit down and blog. A lot has been going on. A lot that I want to share at some point in the near future. But the biggest news is that this past weekend Jason and I bought a house. But let me give you a bit more back story to this miraculous decision.
I had previously shared with you that we were considering moving to GA. Since that blog we have visited a total of 3 times. We've looked at a TON of houses. Our first and second trips we came close to, but left with out having a contract on one. I was extremely sad and frustrated to say the least. But I kept being reminded that God is in control and His timing is perfect.
I feel like I often will say that "God is in control" and still not really believe it. It's something that I definitely have learned I have to tell myself over and over and than the more I remind myself of it the more I recognize He really IS in control. Of EVERYTHING. He was in control of what houses came on the market and which one's went off the market before we could even look at them. He is in control of my husband who ultimately has the final say so on whatever house we like. Every time I started to feel like we weren't doing something right, or didn't get back up to GA fast enough, I remembered, "No, God is in control and that was His way of showing us that that particular house is not where He wants us."
So I've learned through this whole process that I CAN trust Him, He IS in control, He DOES love me and He absolutely has my (and my families) best interest.
So this past weekend Jason and I headed back up to Dallas, Ga. Jason kept saying he was really "feeling it!" and this time we were gonna buy a house. And though I have learned to trust God more, I still operate from a glass half empty stand point, (I think it's a way of protecting myself or something) so I was already mentally and emotionally preparing myself to NOT find a house. You see the whole week prior Jason and I committed to pray together every night for God to reveal the house to us. But I started to think to myself, "You know, just because I'm praying it and Jason's praying it, that doesn't mean that God is going to answer with 'okay here's your house'. But that might be because it's still not His timing." And I wanted to be okay with that. I definitely did not want to find myself upset with God because He didn't answer my prayer the way I hoped and expected Him too. I trusted that even if we didn't find a house this time around, I was still going to praise God for being the wonderful, merciful, loving Father that He is.
The odds were against us this trip. We only had four houses lined up to see. Two of which we had already seen and one of which Jason absolutely did not like AT ALL. We looked at the first one and it was a cute house. Really great back yard with a view of the mountains. I liked the house and could totally have lived in it. Plus, I was trying to get over the materialism that I know I definitely struggle with. It wasn't as big or as nice as some of the homes we had seen before, but the price was definitely right and it met our needs. Then we looked at the second house. (I felt like I was on an episode of House Hunters) This house I had always loved from the beginning but it was totally out of our price range. Until we got there and it dropped by 20 thousand dollars! This house was in our cousins neighborhood which I found to be perfect. It didn't have a basement which Jason really was looking forward to having, but the house is undeniably gorgeous. We looked at two more homes that were farely inexpensive but one was on a horrible lot with a really steap driveway. Ryann would not survive that one.
I was nervous, Jason had always been so addiment about his price range. The house we loved the most was at the top of our budget. We went to take a 2nd look at the Crimson Drive home. The one in our cousins neighborhood. And then Jason said those magic words. "This is the one. This is definitely THE ONE." Of course I was trying to contain my excitement. After all this time we were getting the very house I dreamt about but didn't think was possible for us to get. Not only did God answer our prayer how we were hoping He would but, He gave me the "desires of my heart." (Psalm 37:4)
To top it all off, they accepted our offer and we had an answer back within an HOUR! We left this past trip with contracts signed and are now in the stages of closing.
This is truly a gift from God. I feel like this whole time He knew that it was important to me to be close to our family in GA. He knew more than both Jason and I how vital that is for us to have the support of our relatives close to us. And I think that's why He made this home in their neighborhood available to us. The waiting leading up to it was all about trusting Him. And He definitely proved to be Faithful. I hope that as we make this move into this house we will be able to glorify Him with the blessings He has given us. I pray that Jason and I will find ways in GA to be available for His work in advancing His kingdom. We still aren't completely sure why He is taking us there, but I am confident that He will reveal all of that in due time. I know this move isn't going to be a cake walk, but I also know that GOD IS IN CONTROL and I TRUST HIM =)
The New Graham House. On Crimson (Tide) Dr. ;) God has a sense of humor too! Roll Tide Roll! And Praise His name!
