Lone Star Daddy Daughter Dance

Brooklyn loves her date nights with Daddy. This year, the annual event at her school was hosted by Radio Disney, so rather than the normal formal attire she usually wears, she opted for a more funky outfit! Thanks to gift cards she received for her birthday and Christmas she and I had a blast shopping for all the perfect pieces she wanted. She was amazed at how much accessorizing costs! I'll let you jump over to her blog to read her thoughts about the evening, click here, but I'll tell you she was super excited to share the night with her two favorite gals, her cousins, Emily and Natalie. Brooklyn has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, just like it should be, and tonight was no exception. She giggled her little heart out picking out a pink shirt, a sweater vest, and a hat for her dad to match her "look." Jason, who normally HATES vests, reluctantly complied with her demands, especially since she bought them with her own money! I thought he looked adorable! The judges from Radio Disney obviously thought he was pretty fly too! He won first place in the Daddy Dance Off!

Babies Galore!

As Jason so aptly put it the other day, "Every one of our friends is pregnant right now!" And that's almost exactly true! I just got an email from a friend of mine from High School who had her first baby last week, and his newborn pic is the cutest thing I've seen in a long time so I thought I would share so it could make your heart smile today as well.

Alexander Baoshen Wang

January 22, 2009

We can't wait for the births of Baby Lee on Wednesday, Our Nephew in April, Baby Melson in May, Baby Smith and Baby Wilson next fall and all the other precious fingers and toes God is sending us to love all over! Have a blessed day!

Monday Mom Moments

Today has been a blessed day with my boys and I think I'll take a moment to brag on them.

Nathan

I went through the pile of bring home papers on my kitchen counter today and saw this.

Translation: I Show Respect for others by "help[ing] people learn about God. It is fun."

Corban

Last night as we laid down for prayers the kids went through their usual "Thank you for my mom and dad and family, and pets, and all the people in the world, AMEN!" Routine. Usually I just try to lead by example, but they are studying prayer in their classes at Gateway so I asked them if they thought that was the kind of prayer life they wanted to have with God. Nathan said, "No, not really. Prayer is suppossed to be a conversation with God, not to God." When I asked him what that meant to him, he said, "I need to listen too, not just talk." We then talked some more about their memory verse this week. Psalm 68:2 "Pour out your heart to Him, for God is our refuge." After defining what refuge was, I asked if they wanted to try their prayers again. Corban said yes and this is what his sweet heart said with a very genuine tone in his precious 5 year old voice.

"Lord, I just want to thank you for loving us. Please help us talk to you better. Please help that little boy on the screen at church today, [Aydan Torres Pavelka], help him get better, sleep good without being scared, and be with his mom and dad and his grandma while they sit with him in the hospital. Lord, thank you for placing your love on us. And oh, yeah, I love you so much too. In Jesus Name, Amen."

It was said so tenderly, it brought forth the most beautiful picture in my head, "thank you for placing your love on us." I could see the Father wrapping a physical presence of love around me, and I enjoyed the warmth.

Praise The LORD!

Jason and I have had quite a crazy couple of days, and as Jason put it, "My head's tired of thinking so much!"

1. Thank you to all who have been praying with us over Jason's job situation. He received an offer from another company for an 18% increase in his base salary. We placed Jason's career in the Lord's hands and after much prayer and wrangling, we decided God was asking Jason to stay at Citi, confirming for us two things. A. God will provide financially. (Pray with us that Citi follows through on a guarantee to match the offer in some manner.) and B. Regardless, sometimes quality of life is more important than money in your pocket.

2. Thank you to all who have been praying for healing with me of my broken ankle. My mother-in-law Ruth took me to the Dr. yesterday and was with me to recieve the wonderful news! NO SURGERY! And, furthermore, God has healed it enough that Dr. Brotherton felt I was good to begin walking on it, AND, I don't have to wear my lovely boot to bed anymore!!! PRAISE THE LORD! I will be in the boot for another three weeks, when I return to the Dr., and my crutches are close by for when my weak ankle has had enough, but the end is in sight! So, I'm retiring my sexy scooter, but I thought I would leave you one last reminder.

Finding my silver lining. . .

O.k. so I have an amazing life, with amazing kids, a wonderful home, and a husband I adore, and walking with the Lord as close as I do, I have a deep running joy that never fades, but eventually, enough stuff can pile on top of you that life can "seem" depressing (if only for a day or two!). It finally hit me. After weeks of struggling through this darn broken ankle junk, the turmoil with our church, Jason's job, things with my dementia stricken grandmother and more, I finally quit trying to hold it off and just let myself fall into the pit. I stayed awake all night crying one night, wallowing in my own private pity party (I've matured enough not to invite others too them as often ;)), then slept the entire next day and avoided the world, and today, the clouds are slowly rolling back, and I can quote my mantra once again, "This too shall pass. . . this too shall pass. . . this too shall pass." I finally scootered myself into my office and read an email from my dad's wife Linda. It brightened my day and I'll share it with you so I can brag on my young man with his servant's heart. Usually I'm discussing what a loud voice Corban has been gifted with and how he uses it, but this time it's the strength of his silence.

FROM GRAMMY aka Linda . . . about my kids visit to their ranch December 28th.

Oh, have to share a moment with you on Corban .... and his sensitive compassionate side ... Dr. Bell and his family came out with their children when your boys were playing out on the dirt pile and except for riding the carts they didn't have much interaction with the Bell kids. After awhile we all went inside for hot chocolate and the kids were in the den playing with the dogs, throwing the ring for them to fetch. Collin (Dr Bell's son) was hogging the ring from his sister, Candace (who has Downs-Syndrome). Corban was laying on the couch and was just watching this continue for awhile--- then without a word he simply got up and when the dog came back with the ring, he reached down and took it- looked Collin square in the face and gave the ring to Candace to throw. Corban then went and laid back down. Never said a word, but Collin got the message loud and clear!!! :) It was too precious.

Jason turned 33 sometime recently didn't he?

As I've said before my blog is more of my personal recording device. It may not be up to date on time, but I usually go back and fill in the gaps to keep my memories fresh for preservation sake. Today, (January 3, 2009) Jason has taken the kids to Six Flags, and the crip that I am stayed home and was thrilled to have time to catch up on all of this.

Jason celebrated his 33rd Birthday on December 11th. 11 and 33 have become my spiritual markers with God. I don't know why, those two numbers just have become signs of His presence with me, and of my faith. So, as my husband enters his 33rd year of life in our 11th year of marriage, I'm excited about what God has in store for us this year.

We had a wonderful evening on his birthday at Red Robin Gourmet, his favorite place to eat his favorite Whiskey River Chicken Burger. So many of our friends, and my mom and Bill, surprised him and joined us to laugh and enjoy the evening. He was glowing when we got in the car, he was really touched and happy about who had come out for him.

Let me take a moment to write down some of my thoughts on my husband. In the last couple of weeks, I have been gone an extraordinary amount of time with my job, we have become Debt Free (still makes my heart skip!), I have broken my ankle (this too shall pass), he is making some possible changes in career (scary!), and we are walking through a valley with our Church family (uugghh!). With all that, my husband has stepped up to the plate with an inhuman amount of energy, an increase in his faith, and an unbelievable quantity of love and patience for me and the kids. He is now the sole laundry doer, bedtime prayer giver, dish washing, Christmas putting awayer, Grocery Shopping, kid juggling, dinner preparing, honey doing, fence rebuilding, support offering, master of our castle. I see the weariness creeping up on him often, and then I watch in awe as he pushes it away, puts on a genuine smile and plows on through with peaceful precision. All of this, while battling one of the worst colds I've seen on him in years. He's breathtaking, and he's my partner in it all.

The stress of working for Citi during this financial crisis, the stress of having me gone and now down, and the stress of dealing with our hurting church family is a lot to take on, but he's growing and becoming stronger through it. I love him so much.

With all that's going seemingly wrong at the moment, our faith is so secure, that we're actually super excited about what's around the bend. The difficult times fine tune you, and prepare you for blessings God has waiting, and we've known for awhile, the blessings in this next year are going to be fabulous. We've got new nephews and maybe nieces due to arrive in the next couple of months, God will reward Jason in his career I can just feel it, our faith is going to grow exponentially this year when we watch close friends be healed of afflictions, and there's going to be lots of fun times, vacations, parties, celebrations and more! Yippee! 2009 is going to ROCK! Let's get on with it shall we Lord!

Christmas with Papa and Grammy!

The kids traveled out to Papa's Place (aka J Bar L Ranch) for New Year's Day plus one, and they had a fabulous time riding the carts with the Mini Horses and simply being with their cousins.




Bethany is shown driving the carts, she's the resident horse master of J Bar L Ranch!

I've weened myself off of the pain medication so Jason and I were nervous about driving all the way out to Whitewright to pick the kids up and do Christmas with them without being able to elevate my foot in the car, so everyone was extremely gracious enough to load up their gifts and the kids and come to our house for the evening. Brian and Amy stopped by and picked up On The Border fajitas, and we all crowded into our cozy little place for a wonderful evening. You can only imagine the noise level of 7 kids and 8 adults in my place with wood floors and no carpeting to absorb sound!!! Then add Guitar Hero World Tour Band on top of it!

From Papa and Grammy the boys received RC Cars, the Girls received Silver Horse Necklaces and cool shirts, and they all also got cool cookbooks, and kits to build different parts of a ranch to play with. Aunt Kelly made the girls beautiful little jewelry boxes and bracelets, and the boys got beloved matchbox cars.

Adiah recieved lots of cool horses and things, but her favorite gift from Papa and Grammy was this toy that converted any door into a playhouse. Amy was just talking about how Adiah's fascinated with knocking on doors, so it was perfect and as you can see, she was delighted!