My Sweet Craft

Remember a while back when I did that Craft It Forward thing? Well, I received my item from my friend Marci last week during my blogging break.




Isn't it so cute?!?! I love it. Thank you Miss Marci! You did a fabulous job.

My craft it forward item is going to get to Rachel in tomorrow's mail if it's the LAST thing I do! It's been done for weeks and still in my house. Sorry Rachel!

I'm back!!

Hello World! I'm back from my blogging break. I had a really tough but really great week last week. I managed to get through almost 2 months of my "Read thru the Bible in a year" plan. Nothing like getting ahead! I spent a whole lot of time praying. And crying. And praying some more. I asked Him to change me and throughout the course of the week- and I kid you not- I feel like a new person. I feel like myself again. It was a great reminder for me to not neglect what's most important for anything.

Jason worked several late nights last week- we are so thankful for the nicer weather which allows us to work! Me and the kids got to spend lots of quality time together, which was nice.

I finished reading the last Chronicles of Narnia book. I started the 7 book series the day after Christmas and I couldn't hardly put them down. I loved reading them. I'm so glad Braden's Bammaw and Grandpa got him that for Christmas! Ha!

My shoulder that hurt me most of last Spring and Summer started hurting again. Joy in the mornin'. It's not unbearable, so I'm sure I'll live.

Jason and I were given a gift card to Applebees by some friends and we used it on Friday night. Christen, our fabulous babysitter, came to sit with the kids for a couple hours. I'm telling you what, that was the best meal we've eaten in a long time. We got a corner booth with a tv right in front of us and we sat side by side and cuddled the whole time. Within the first 10 minutes of the meal, I think we commented a few times on the fact that we hadn't had to wipe 1 single mouth or hands. We hadn't had to clean up any messes or cut up anyone's dinner. We hadn't had to Shhhhsh anyone. We hadn't had to say, "Be nice" or "Share" or "Mind Your Manners" either. It was so nice, I can't even tell you. I never realized how much I've missed getting to get out just me and Jas. Let me tell you, it's worth a million bucks to me every time we get to. We will never neglect "us" like that for years at a time again. N-E-V-E-R.

MeMe and Bammaw both came to watch Braden's last basketball game on Saturday morning. And Daddy had to miss the last few because he had to work, so it was extra nice to have him there with us too!



On Saturday, we got the boys signed up to play football. They are supposed to have their first practices next Monday. They cannot wait. They keep talking about how they can't wait to hit somebody. I can't tell you how excited that makes me. After watching their Daddy play football for years and being a major football fan... this is the sport we've been dying for them to get to play. We'll see if they like it and will let you know.

Jason and I signed up to teach a 1-year olds class at church. We will start on Saturday night. We are very excited. We will be doing it every other week.

Braden had a biography report due on Tuesday. He did his on Walt Disney. He made a big board- like a science fair board- with all of his information and pictures. I forgot to take a picture of it, so I will do that later and post it.
They were supposed to dress up like their person, so here is Mr. Walt Disney himself, on the morning before school. How cute is he??

Long Post Before Hiatus

That's right, I'm going on a cyberspace hiatus. 7 days to be exact. I am taking a break from facebook and posting to my blog as well as reading other blogs. It will be hard for me, since this is in many ways my only link to the outside world as I am working, child-rearing and housekeeping in my house all day. But, it is necessary. I am going to devote extra time to prayer and bible study for these 7 days. I have been feeling bitter over our financial situation with the house thing and it's just not right. I need to take time to get right and begin to be able to look at things from His perspective again. No longer my own self-pity and doubt... that nasty ole' stuff has just about worn my poor heart, soul and mind out!

So, here's a LONG post to catch you up on the last week before my absence.

My camera has been broken for a few weeks now. I found out that it would cost more to repair it than we paid for it, so I broke down and bought a new one this week.
Here's the first pics I took with it.

Here's the boys, just hanging out and being silly.



Here's Gracie giving us her beauty pageant pose!



Jason and I found a wonderful babysitter, who is the daughter of one of our former teachers. They live in our town and I was so excited when she agreed to be our babysitter. So, Friday night Jason and I went out on a Valentine's Day date. We went to PF Changs, where we learned that the wait would be approx 115 minutes. I was like, "You mean 5 minutes short of 2 hours?!" I'm sure the girl at the desk was annoyed by that statement. We wanted to be gone for 2 hours since it was the first time with the new babysitter we didn't want her to have to worry about bedtime... So, we hopped in the car and headed to Copeland's. We waited about 40 minutes for a table. We were gone 3 hrs and 45 minutes and all we did was go eat and come straight home. Pretty crazy!!!
Here's the pic Christen snapped of us before we left.
Oh, and that's my new haircut. You can't really tell from the pic, but I have some little bangs now, for the first time in at least 15 years.


Saturday, Valentine's Day, Jason had to work all day. I took Braden to his basketball game. MeMe and PaPa met us there and they were a great help with the kids as usual. Braden played really well!
He's #14 in the green shirt and white shorts.





When we got back from bball, Bammaw and Uncle Jeff came to see us for a little bit and brought us a giant chocolate chip cookie cake with icing for Valentine's Day. We immediately had a slice, of course!!! So yummy!

Bammaw also brought me these beautiful flowers. I'm not going to say where she got them, but it's pretty funny!



When Jason got home from work, he brought me these goodies! He actually called the kids outside and had them bring the gifts to me. How sweet!! I totally wasn't expecting anything, so it was such a surprise. And I bawled like a baby when I read his card. He said he went through a ton of them to find the perfect one. And it was perfect. Couldn't have been more perfect. I will keep that card forever. I must say that I've read it a few more times, and I've cried every time. Who would think that a simple card could mean so much? It does to me.

All my vases got thrown away when we moved, so this is what my romantic husband came up with so my roses didn't die. It's ok, because we live in Arkansas!!!








Since it was too late to have time to get ready and make it to church by the time Jason got home from work, we decided to make a run to Bville and swap beds with Jason's mom. The boys have outgrown their full size bed and we swapped with her for 2 twin sized ones. They officially have no room to play in their room now b/c the beds take up so much room, but such is life. ONE day we WILL have space for all of us and all our stuff. Oh, I long for that day. A bunch of their toys had to be put into the garage....but hopefully warmer weather will be coming soon and they can play with them there.

Anyway, we here's the kids and the mattresses crammed into the Suburban. Yes, we went all the way there and back like this. It was 40 degrees outside, so we had to crank up the heat because we were freezing in the car!! Praise the Lord we made it safely since 1 of the kids wasn't seat belted... Sorry MeMe. I didn't mention this at the time so you wouldn't worry!





We went to church this morning. We have only gone to church on Sunday morning 1 other time since we moved here. We have been going to the Saturday night services at our church. This morning confirmed why we like going on Saturday night. Church let out at noon and it was 12:45 before we even got on the bypass. And it's only a couple miles from the church to there.
Traffic was c-r-a-z-y!! That's now officially what I loathe about living here.

We are looking forward to a busy week. Jason has volleyball on Monday and bootcamp class at the gym Tues, Thurs and Fri. The boys have school pics tomorrow. Braden has his last bball practice Thursday night and I hope to be able to make it to the gym 3-4 times this week. Just the same ole' same ole'.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and I will be back in 7 days!!!

Jason told me to say, "Peace Out!"

Prayer for a family

My heart is breaking for this tiny baby girl and for this family. I wanted to share them with you. Please pray for them!!

Karg Family Prayer for Veiyah

Hula Hoopin' Rhett

Last Friday night the boys' school had a Sock Hop. It was really fun. The music was too loud for my aging ears... I can't even imagine being that girl that used to head bang her fro right in front of the speakers at dances back in school... I am so not that girl today!

Me and Jason even got out there and danced to the YMCA with all the other parents.

They had a hula hoop contest for each grade and Rhett participated in the Kindergarten group. Here he is hoopin' it up!!

School Play and Injury

Saturday night at church, while playing dodgeball, apparently 3 kids pushed over a wooden partition wall. Braden was on the "receiving end" of that wall. We were told that he tried to catch the wall so that it didn't fall on anyone else, and the corner of it met his poor little face. He was so brave about it and didn't even cry. It sure does look gross though! We are SO thankful that it didn't get his eye. It got mighty close! I took these pics this morning before school- you can see that he's got a nice purple shiner under his eye to go with it now.

Last Thursday night was the 2nd grade program at school. Braden was cast as one of the bears in the play. Here's him in part of his costume. I made him some little ears coming out of his stocking cap with brown pipe cleaners. I also used the pipe cleaners to make claws coming out of the end of his gloves. He looked so cute! He had 3 lines in the play and he did all of the perfectly. We were SO proud!!

Here's Gracie and Rhett posing in the hallway after the play.

Here's Braden standing up on stage during the play. It was really cute and our music teacher did a really great job of putting it all together.

Prayer for our House

Can I ask you guys to say a little prayer for us??

After several months on the market, our house in BV is still for sale. This week, we have had 1 showing and a couple phone call inquiries. Better than nothing!! I have truly been SO thankful for the interest.

Yesterday, we received a phone call and an offer on the house! It was lower than we are willing to go, but hey... it was something to be thankful for and give us hope that maybe this will all be behind us soon and we can move on to the next phase of our "new" life.

After praying about it, deliberating about it and putting pen to paper, we decided to come down a little more on our counter offer and call them back with another counter offer. After yesterday, they said they would not be calling back. After calling them back today, they said they'd think about it and get back to us.

If it's what God has planned for us, it will work out. If not, it won't. I have a peace about that.

We would love if you would pray with us that we would have wisdom and discernment as we continue to go through this process. That we would have clarity in knowing what we should do at each step. We haven't come this far in this "journey" to NOT seek God's will first-- so that's what we're trying to do. We just want to make sure we hear him right!

Thank you so much. Praying friends and family are the best thing our family can have. With our "Krazy" life, we depend on it so much!

We love you all and I will keep you posted.

Ice Storm Pics

I finally got my computer fixed. Hallelujah! So I thought I would post some pics of the ice storm from last week. Our good camera is broken, so we took these with the camera on our camcorder. Hope you can still make them out.

This is standing on our back deck.

This is the private road behind our back yard. Taken around dusk.
To me, this is the most amazing thing. This is Jason holding up a single branch covered in ice. Each individual blade of grass was covered like this too. So cool.

Tree behind our house. Split right down the middle.

Braden

Rhett. Who got in trouble for not having a coat on right after this picture!

The hat says it all. Here's our princess out in the front yard.
Eating a big 'ole piece of ice.

Daddy and Gracie walking in the back yard. She didn't like the way it felt on her feet!

Craft It Forward,Prayer, Soreness and Thankfulness

I'm all over the board today... bear with me. My mind is a jumbled, rambling mess at the moment and I'm going to try to get it all out to see if it'll help me sleep better tonight!

First: Craft It Forward

My friend Marci at All Things Wonderful has *started* a great giveway.

Here's what it's all about:

If you want to win a handmade ♥GIFT♥ from me. Be one of the first 3 bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which entitles you to a handmade item from me. Winners must post this giveaway on your blog, meaning that you will {Craft it Forward} too, creating a handmade gift for the first three bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway! The gift that you send can be any price range and you have 30 days to make and ship your item(s).Now do you see why I thought this idea was genius? How fun is this gonna be? Remember, it’s the spirit and the thought that count! When you receive your gift, please blog about it! If you are not one of the Top Three to comment on this post, you can still play along. Please start your own {Craft it Forward} chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same.

I must admit, I'm not the most crafty person....but, I think I've come up with a neat idea that even I can do!

So, go ahead and leave me a comment. You know you want to!

Second: Prayer Request
Can I ask all my praying friends and family to pray for Cynthia. I stumbled upon her blog and learned that she lost her unborn baby at 38 weeks (just 2 weeks away from her due date) due to umbilical cord strangulation. I know she will appreciate your prayers.

Third: Soreness
Boy am I sore. It pains me to sit here and type! And I'm sitting in my bed on my laptop. How sad is that! I missed 2 weeks of working out. Week 1 Gracie had mono. We only left the house to go to the dr and back a couple times. Week 2 the "ice storm of the century" hit and we were homebound for DAYS. The boys were out of school and the day care at the gym was closed.

I was there bright and early Monday. I developed a new plan to see if I could get off the plateau that I've hit and start moving in the losing direction again. Instead of trying to cram in cardio and toning in the same day 3 days a week- maybe I'll go 4-5 days a week and do all cardio one day, toning the next, etc. I can't keep it up forever, but maybe if I do this for a few weeks, I'll start seeing the scales go down again.

So far, I can tell a huge difference. Monday I did 1/2 mile on the treadmill to warm up and then I did upper and lower body toning with dumbbells for 1 hour straight. I am so sore. I can't even tell you. It hurts to go to the bathroom- I can't hardly sit and stand from the sitting position. I'm hoping I don't end up with a bladder or kidney infection because I'm holding it as long as I can to minimize the pain. I am such a wienie! You'd never guess I gave birth to 2 children with no drugs! (I did chicken out on #3- she was my epidural baby!) ANYWAY... even though I can hardly move, I went to the gym and power walked 2 miles on the treadmill today. I got loosened up after the first few minutes and then I kept a pretty good pace. I thought I'd never make it down the stairs of the gym after I was done. Oh, my word... I'm so sore. So, I know I'm doing the right thing because obviously, I'm working my muscles again! Still the same on the weight. 15 pounds lost total. I have 20 more to go... seems like they will never go away at this point! I'm going to keep at it. Have you ever known a person to work out at least 3 days a week and watch what they eat and NOT lose weight? I'm thinking that endurance is going to win this race! And I'm in it to win it, baby!

Fourth: Thankfulness
I try to keep a thankful heart at all times. It's not easy sometimes....but I have SO much to be thankful for every day and I don't ever want to forget that. Here's a few big ones just from this week.

1. Our computer "crashed" the other day. After envisioning the worst, I took it to the Geek Squad today and turns out, it was only "bad ram". I needed more memory. It's already fixed! I am so thankful I didn't lose everything on my computer. That would have been a
D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R! Note to self: get a back-up system in place stat!

2. We have had a couple calls on our BV house this week! One showing over the weekend and another person who might be scheduling a showing soon. After going months with out a single phone call on it, this little bit of activity is enough to restore my faith. This situation with the house not selling is my #1 biggest worry/frustration right now. And has been for 6 months!!! I know God is in control. I say it with my mouth and I know it in my head, but sometimes it's hard for that truth to sink in to your heart. Sometimes (more often than I'd like to admit, actually) I forget it and get all flustered. And emotional. And crazy. But, I just have to sit down with the word of God and pray and I remember the truth.
Dear Jesus, I pray that this will all be behind us SOON. But if your idea of soon isn't the same as my idea of soon, please help me to have peace and comfort and just DEAL with it one day at a time!

3. As most of you probably know, we are self employed and as of right now, work exclusively for 1 major utility company. We rely solely on them for our income. We send in an invoice every week for the work we did that week. We are supposed to receive a check every week. Sometimes we don't. They got 3 weeks behind in December. We got a little bit paid to us the first week in January and then we went another 3 weeks without getting paid. This is extremely difficult to deal with because the world does not stop when we don't get paid. We have 5 employees who count on us to give them their paycheck every Friday. The government wants their payroll taxes paid on the 15th of every month and they could care less if we didn't get paid the money we were owed. The list goes on and on and on. So, despite the fact that we make a good living in this field, we're always playing catch-up because we don't have a guaranteed paycheck that will come just because we worked hard and did our job... part of the life God has chosen for us at this point and we're ok with that. Doesn't make it any easier to deal with though!

I know, I know, get to the point, Sister... I told you I was a jumbled up mess in this head of mine...

So, the point is that I am THANKFUL that they finally paid us for 2 weeks worth of the late invoices yesterday and today. I'm praying that they've got whatever has caused all this trouble in their system figured out and we'll get back on track.

Like I say to Jason all the time, "I'm not asking for a million dollars. I'm not asking for a hand out. I'm just asking that we be paid on time for what we're owed for the work that we've done. Period. Is that too much to ask?!" Apparently much of the time it is... that's just not the way it works when you're self employed.
This is not a journey for the faint-hearted--- I can tell you that much!

In Jesus Name, Mamma!

This evening when I was getting the boys ready for bed, Gracie was tugging at my pants and yelling something at me. I was busy at the moment and I didn't make the effort to decipher what she was saying.
She continued on and on and on. Saying the same thing over and over. A couple minutes passed and I bent over to look at her and figure out what she was saying.
She was saying, "In Jesus Name, Mamma" over and over.
How sweet is that?!
For a few weeks now, we've been doing night time prayers with her. Me and Jason will take turns and we'll say a few words and she'll repeat them. The past few nights, she has just burst out into her own little prayer that goes a little something like this,
"Dear Jesus, blah blah blah word that I can't make out mumble mumble blah, In Jesus Name, ANEM."
Yes, that's ANEM not AMEN. So sweet!
So tonight, she heard Rhett ask me if I was going to help them do their night time prayers and that's when she started saying "In Jesus Name, Mamma!"
She was telling me she wanted to pray!
I love it!