Monday, November 29, 2010

The promise of eternity in Christ

Well, we said goodbye to the Donahoo's yesterday. They are England bound as we speak. (In case you do not know the Donahoo's, they are a family from our church who is leaving to work with MTW and Grace Fellowship Church in Culcheth, England) I praise God for His faithfulness. Just as He called them to go He has provided. The Lord has used them in mighty ways among our church family at Community PCA here in Moody, AL. Our pastor put it very well last night when he said that just as the church in Anitoch did with Paul and Barnabas, we are sending out our own family for the work that the Lord has commissioned them to do. They will be missed greatly, and as we are preparing to move away as well, we think of everyone that we will miss. The great and sure hope that we have as those who are united in Christ is that we are promised eternity praising our Lord together in His very presence! That will truly be a glorious day! In light of that we must seek what the Lord is calling us to do now, while He has left us here in the world. In light of the fact that we were once enemies of God, yet so loved by Him that He sent His very Son who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf and bear the wrath of God for us...WOW...we should be zealous for the building up of His Kingdom!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thanksgiving Day

We will let the pictures tell our day's recap from Thanksgiving!
We started out our day finding Sarah Kate sleeping sideways in her big girl bed.
Then we got up, got our wings on, and enjoyed some chocolate chip muffins for breakfast!
After filling our belllies, we all pitched in to help make some white chocolate bread pudding.
After filling up with an incredible lunch, we played some football outside.
Sarah Kate found it fun to fill her sack up with rocks from Nana and Pop's garden.
Time for some family pics :)
Cookie break with Memaw!
After nap, we headed off for more fun at Mimi's with everyone!
The girls were so busy all night running around playing, this is the how most all of the pictures turned out....blurry :) They had some good fun though!

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Life Update

I am pooped from a fun filled day, so this blog post might be random and confusing, but I am going to attempt an update anyways.



1. We officially have a house to move into in St. Louis :) We got a hold of the landlord last week and found out that they were accepting our application (the last time we had talked with her, they were also processing 2 other applications on the house). They are willing to hold the house until January, which is what our prayer was. Praise! Michael and I breathed a nice sigh of relief when we found out. Place to live: check!



2. Packing is officially underway around here. We brought in some boxes yesterday to get started. I want to not be overwhelmed during the holidays, so I figure if I get started now then we will be free for fun Christmas activities later. We already have the spare bedroom as our "box room" so we can put boxes in there as we pack and not be living with boxes all around us which is nice.



3.Sarah Kate moved into her "big girl bed" last week. It has been successful so far, except she is getting more and more adventurous with getting out whenever she sees fit (like tonight after being put to bed). She loves her bed though and I am glad she is transitioning so easily before the move.



4. So last night my throat was really bothering me. So I have had this occasional annoying sore throat, feeling like there is a knife on one side of my throat. I have ignored it for long enough and last night it was really bothering me. Michael looks at it with a flashlight and discovers a white pocket on my right tonsil. So we decide to call the doctor this morning and get worked in to see my ENT doc. After the doctor sees it and I explain how long it has been on and off hurting me, he tells me I need to have my tonsils removed. Boo. I am not very excited about this and of course this comes at a time when we are getting close to the move and leaving jobs, ect... Pray for me. I scheduled the surgury for Dec. 17th, the week before Michael's last week at his work. I am glad to have an "in" at the hospital (my mother works in the recovery room), so I will know the people who recover me and take care of me, but it is still surgury...boo. Pray for Michael and I as we figure out insurance details. I know it will be an easy surgury and the recovery should not be bad at all, but it is the week before Christmas and 3 weeks before our move. Crazy! God is good and I know this is just another opportunity to trust in Him and He will provide all we need. He has so far and I know He will continue to as we take this journey called life.

So given that I have this surgury thing to do in a few weeks, packing is going to be kicked into high gear beforehand. I am so thankful for family and friends that we have hear to help. Fun times ahead....

Y'all have a good thanksgiving!! I am ready for some fun family time this weekend and then we can get back to all this crazy stuff figuring out next week. For now, I plan to be lazy with my baby girl today, do a little cooking, and enjoy family this weekend :) We are so blessed and I thank our Father in Heaven for all that we have been blessed with, even though I am a dirty rotten sinner undeserving, BUT He loves me and cares and still blesses our family. Thank you Father!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Michael's 2 cents

Since my lovely bride set me up as a publisher on our blog, I thought I would make a quick post. So I guess I'll just share what is on my mind lately. We are quickly approaching our move to St. Louis so naturally my mind has been on that. I was talking with a co-worker the other day who was asking me about our plans to move to St. Louis to go to seminary. As I explained how we have gotten to this point in our journey, I realized how many things that the Lord has done and how much grace we have received. I could not help but to praise Him. I also realized that the Lord has been teaching me something else through all of this...

It is very common especially in our culture to focus on human success or happiness...to approach things from a man-centered perspective (I must say that I have to repent of this sin often, and I trust that many of you do as well). We even do it with events in scripture such as the life of Joseph or David. We use these stories as moral examples and miss the deeper purpose. That deeper purpose is that they foreshadow the redeemer. They show us how God is working out redemption in history. The simple truth is that God's own Son, Jesus Christ, is the hero. He loved and died for us even while we were enemies of God. The good news of the gospel is that He is Lord and His kingdom is here! Romans 8:28 (a commonly quoted verse) takes on a much deeper meaning when we consider all of this. Rather than focusing on what we think is good for us, we will focus on the perfect good that God purposed through His Son.

As I work through this myself I think back on all that the Lord has done to prepare the way to seminary and I am reminded of the fact the Lord is working out all of this for the building up of His kingdom! May we make much of Christ!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Pumpkin Patch Rewind

Well, the holidays are quickly approaching and times are busy right now, which means the blog is way overdue once again. A few weeks ago we headed out to the Pumpkin patch with Sarah Kate and had such a blast that we went again :) Sarah Kate had such fun both times seeing all of the animals, riding the hay ride and she definitely had an opinion this year on which pumpkin she wanted to go home with her. So here is an overload of pics from both fun days!

Last weekend we had our "By Hand Boutique" at our church which I was crazy busy the week before making things for. I had a blast sharing a booth with Whitney and even sold some things :) Now with that behind me though, my focus this week has been the start of cleaning out and getting ready for the big pack. I can't believe we are down to 7 weeks! So much to do and I can easily get overwhelmed by looking at the whole picture, but that is when the husband comes in and eases my mind and reminds to take it a day at a time and one box at a time. Hopefully through this crazy time of year I won't slack too much on the blog. We shall see I guess :) Now off to enjoy some down time while the princess hopefully continues to nap...




Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Holiday preparations are underway!

Well, the holiday season is approaching quickly and I have found my first awesome bargain of the season. Thanks to some friends, I found Shutterfly is doing a great deal where you can get 50 free cards when you write up a blog about their products and spreading the word for others to check out their website. So, here you find my blog so that I can get the free cards! I must say though that I have used Shutterfly before and have enjoyed their service and prices in the past. The have some great gift ideas and the prices are really not too bad, esp. when they are always running some sort of deal with your order.
If you wanna check out their holiday cards, go Here or check out These too. I still have to choose which ones we will order, but there are some great choices found there.
Last year I used Shutterfly to make Michael a Calendar for him to keep at work. I loved how cute it turned out and Michael loved the pictures of his little girl on each page.
If you are a blogger too, check out this link for how I am going to get 50 free cards! It is worth the few minutes it took to write up a quick blog!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

How Great is our God!


Well, Michael and I are back from a whirlwind of a trip to St. Louis. We left Wednesday and hit the ground running. Sarah Kate had a blast at all of her "slumber parties". Our time up there was spent learning the city, looking for housing, and job interviews. We found most of the houses we went to see on Craigslist. It was a great resource for us, but let's just say, looks can sometimes be deceiving from online verses reality. Some of the places we had made appointments with were not the same as what they were portrayed as online. Thursday and Friday were spent rushing from appt. to appt. then to interviews. We had found some okay options, but nothing I felt excited about. Michael did have his interview on Thursday, which he was offered a job at the end of the interview, so that was encouraging and exciting. He will be working with Chick-Fil-A part-time. It seems like they are going to be a great company to work for during this time in our lives. I also interviewed with a few different nanny positions, and decided to accept a position that seems like it will be a great fit for Sarah Kate and I. I am so excited about the job and think it will be a great environment and lots of fun too :)




So, we were able to check off of our list both getting jobs. Back to the housing. By Friday, Michael and I had pretty much fell in love with one area of St. Louis called Richmond Heights. We were able to open some time up on Friday and just drive down the streets of this area and look for any for rent signs that we could find, then pull over and call. So Friday, we happened upon this one house. It seemed cute enough on the outside, so we pulled over and called. The sweetest lady answered the phone and I talked with her about the house for about 30 minutes. We set up to meet the next morning before we flew out. When we walked inside, I got giddy. I LOVED it. I mean, LOVED LOVED it. It is adorable and I could see our furniture in there and it being a place that I could call home for the time we are there. The other places we had considered up to this point all had flaws and things I wasn't really excited about, but this place meets all of our needs. It has a yard that Sarah kate can play in, which was not the case with most of the others we had looked at. It has a kitchen that I can move around in, nothing big, but useable and clean and really cute. We had one other appt. after this house, so we left saying that we loved it and would let her know soon. As we looked at the other house, I kept thinking about that house and how it just felt like home. We headed to grab lunch and talk it over before heading to the airport and decided to call the lady of the house we loved and tell her we would like to rent it. We were finally able to get in touch with her after landing in Birmingham and it sounds like as long as her husband is okay with holding it for us for the month of Dec. then it is ours. Pray with us that her husband will be fine with that.


So that is a quick summary of our last few days. We were definitely exhausted by the end of it, but felt so blessed. God has been so gracious to us and He continues to provide for us. He is so faithful, and all we have to do is believe. I do admit there were times during the trip I struggled with my unbelief, but God chose to bless us even though I didn't have the faith at times that it would all work out. God is so good and as Sarah Kate always sings, "Our God is a great, big God!"


Now without further ado, welcome to our St. Louis home: