New Stuff

This is my new phone!! I wasn't all about a new phone, but my razr (Ryan's old one to be exact) was messing up several times a day for no reason. Since I was due for an upgrade, I got a new one for fairly cheap! So fun! Ryan also "upgraded" us to unlimited texting. I have just not done well with trying to stay under our number of texts! Watch out....

Then after we stopped and got my phone, we went to Fort Smith. We weren't sure (or at least I wasn't) what we were going to do. I knew we were headed to the mall to eat and get me some make up, but as we left, Ryan suggested we go look at furniture!! That is our next big purchase. Our couch and big chair is the one we got when we got married, 8 years old! They are both in fairly bad shape, but the chair is VERY stained and looks horrible! The couch is not horrible, but definately needs updating. I love my friend Mischelle's new couch and had just decided I would get that exact one! :) She said it was fine. We went looking anyway, this one is similar to hers, but a little bit darker. I like it. It was a good price. It is not available for about a month though! Apparently it is popular. The color to me is darker in person, it is more of a brown in person than a khaki that it sort of looks here. The pillows that come with it are TERRIBLE colors. It has some gold, brown and a lot of light blue. Pillows obviously don't make or break us buying it, but these won't ever be used in our house. Oh well...more shopping now for pillows! We didn't order it today, but I think we will. We both like it and I'm not the kind of shopper that has to see EVERY option before I buy it. If I like it, I get it!

My Prayer

Lord, I desire to be a useful and relevant tool for Your purposes in this generation. Give me eyes to see the ways that I have been influenced by this culture, causing me to ecome apathetic and passive regarding Your plans for me. Forgive me for allowing the things of this world to replae my fervent desire for the things that are eternal. I want a restored passionate relationship with You, one in which I can be used for Your glory. I do not want to be on the shelf, unable to be an efficient servant of Yours because I am lukewarm. Forgive me of the sin of indifference and complacency. Give me a renewed sensitivity to the things that matter to you. Will you reignite the fire and passon between us this week? As I presss into You, open my spiritual eyes to see the holes I have lfet unguarded to the world and its influences. Reveal to me the spirits of this age that creep in, affecting my friendship with you, and show me the places they enter. As we talk this week, give me Your courage to do whatever is necessary to fix the holes by severing relationships with anyone and anything assisting in keeping us from experiencing sweet intimacy and fellowship. Thank You for knocking onthe door of my heart. I'm listening for Your arrival and will answer Your call quickly and in full obedience.

In Jesus name, Amen

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold orhot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

Revelation 3:15-16

This is EXACTLY what I needed to read today! Wow! Isn't God amazing. I have had this kind of attitude for way too long. Just going along and being very lukewarm. That is so sad to my Savior, my Rock and my Comforter!

We have just not had much blog "worthy" things going on. Just for all of my faithful readers (ha ha ha) I thought I'd update you on a few things.

DNOW 09:
We were one of the host homes for Disciple Now. If you don't know, this is basically a youth retreat. They stay the night in a home, have in home Bible study/discussions, 2 worship services on Sat. and a recreation time. It was a lot of fun. I think the fact that we knew our group of kids made it that much more fun. We had 10th grade girls here at our house. Ryan slept here but that is about it. He spent his time with his boys. It was a good time for all. The speaker we had was Wade Morris. He was very very good. Very youth oriented in his talking, but very very applicable. I felt like I was at youth camp all over, but in an amazingly good way! It was a great renewal for me! There were great things that God did this weekend with our youth group. Three boys that are in Ryan's Sunday School class were baptized Sunday morning! Another boy rededicated his life. It was awesome!! One that was baptized and the one that rededicated his life are two of them that Ryan seems to be the closest to. It was neat. I'm thankful that we were able to watch God move and be part of it all. What a blessing!

Tres:
Tres is fine. I suppose! So far as I know at this big 7 week mark! :) I started taking Zofran. It has helped and seemed to help emmensly over the weekend. Maybe I had more people praying for me to feel good for DNOW. I don't know. I could go on and on about it. Yesterday and today I don't feel as "normal" but don't feel as bad as I did last Thursday (I was in tears I was so nauseaous) either. I know it will be worth it and I will probably even forget how bad I felt. I was just so hoping for an easy, non sick pregnancy. I guess now I'm praying that it will go away and I won't feel like this the ENTIRE time like I did with Courtney.

Uncle Allen:
Uncle Allen is NOT doing well. Please pray for my cousins, his 3 children. They are having a really really hard time with this. They are very worn out and tired. They continue to have amazing faith which challenges me each time I read the blog to check in. WOW!! You can click on the link to the right if you want to read all about it. A short version is that the hospital he is at can not do anything else. They don't have anything left to try and figure out, they are stumped. Mayo clinic said the same thing. Now, they (not sure if that means hospital or family, but I assume hospital along with family) are contacting a neuro clinic in California! I just can't imagine them being that far away dealing with this. I haven't been there, but I know they have a TON of friends and some family close enough to help, but California?? So far away. However, if that is where God leads them, it will be fine I know!

Tres & DNow

I haven't had a whole lot to post. Not too much going on. I have a cute video of Courtney that I need to put on here, but haven't downloaded it to the computer yet....that will be coming soon.

I went to the doctor but didn't see the doctor. I knew I wouldn't. I talked to the lady about how much Tres is going to cost us just fo the doctors fees and was told to make our first payment next time I came. They hit you up early, huh?! :) Then I got to get on the scale--fun! Let's just say that Tres weighs a lot for this early stage--JUST KIDDING--it is me! Oh well, life will go on. I'm disappointed in myself because after Lindsey, I did get back to that weight before getting pregnant with Courtney. This time I really struggled. The story of my life....

Disciple Now (aka DNOW) is this weekend for our church. This is a weekend for the youth to have a "revival" kind of thing. They sign up, stay in homes (ours being one of them) for 2 nights and have devotions with a leader (not me), go to worship services and have a great time doing "youth stuff" in between. Ryan and I are hosting some of the 10th grade girls in our house. There are about 8 I thinkt that will bring their sleeping bags and crash at our house starting tonight. I'm excited to see what God does with these girls, but with myself as well! It will be a fun time. Pray for this weekend when you think of us.

Note to self...

Tres likes Diet Coke! Ha! Today I have "let myself" have more diet coke than I have in the past month and Tres likes it! I have felt better today than I have in a week!!

Sorry Dr. Seale (my OBGYN), to function I must have more than one a day!

Pregnancy "update"

As if I have something to report! Ha! I don't really, but wanted to put this out there....I am starting to feel so much worse! :( Ugghh!! Just like I did with Courtney. Headaches and woozy! I don't feel sick, but almost like a horrible sinus infection headache where you just want to lay in a dark room and close your eyes with no sound or light. That is what you want. But, reality is that you have a 4 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old. They are busy. I started teaching MDO, I have stuff I need to do. I don't have time to feel like this! :) Right!?!

I go to the doctor/nurse on Wednesday. I will see the finance lady (fun!) and then the nurse and do blood work. Nothing exciting, but I am going to mention how I feel. For some reason I don't want to take that medicine again, but at the same time I can't feel like this everyday. I'm such a wimp I guess. I don't know of too many people taking things to feel better when they are pregnant! Am I weird? I have a high pain tollerance (Ryan would even agree with that), but ZERO tollerance for feeling nauseous and having a headache 24/7. Even in the middle of the night, if Courtney wakes up or something (like last night twice) I can hardly go in there without feeling sick to my stomach so bad!

Any good ideas are appreciated. I told Ryan tonight that maybe I need to be better about eating "snacks" or something. I've heard that people do that. It seems to be that when I do eat, I feel better. I'm also drinking WAY less Diet Coke. Which I think is a good thing, but also a culprit of some of the headaches. Such a circle.

On the same note, I am so excited. I think I get more and more excited all the time about this little one. Today our pastor preached on "sanctity of life" and I did a skit about abortion. It was all too real knowing that there is this little baby (not fetus) in me with a beating heart, footprints, "buds" for fingers, "dents" for ears, so many many of the internal organs are there as well! Wow! It is amazing to stop and think about what all is going on. I can get over these headaches and this woozy feeling for "it" (aka him/her)--I feel weird calling my baby an "it." So precious!

"It" leads to another funny story--When I'm pregnant, Ryan accidently nicknames "it" which turns out to be fun since we don't find out what we are having. With Lindsey she was "RJ" (Ryan Junior) because I told him I wasn't into initals, but some people are. Then with Courtney he wanted to name "it" Skeet if it was a boy. Yes, you read that correct SKEET. There is a fisherman named Skeet Reece and his favorite fishing boat is a Skeeter, therefore he thought it would be logical to name a boy Skeet. I refused, so that was the nickname. In a story way too long to type, he named this one "Tres" as in uno, dos, tres, quatro....but we will NOT have quatro! :) Again, this isn't something that we sit around and discuss, but most of you know Ryan and how dry but funny he is. This is how that happens. So, Tres it is! I no longer have to refer to "it" as It, but for now until October, we have Tres!! I love my husband!

Stay tuned for Tres updates....I'm sure there will be many more than you care to read about!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! We had parties at MDO this week and the girls took their cards to their friends there. Courtney picked out Mickey Mouse ones with stickers. She thought she was so big. It looks like she's writing, but she just "colored" and I helped her write the names.

Lindsey picked out princess ones, of course! Her preschool teacher suggested doing them in "spurts" so the kids could write the names and they wouldn't get tired of them. So, we started eraly in the week! However, she wrote all of them...2 classes worth in one afternoon! She loved it! She tore them apart, looked at the list, wrote the names and put the pencils in all by herself!


Then the big surprise came on Thursday at school. I teach right next to Lindsey's class. The director came over and said, "Get your camera. You embarassed your daughter." I was so confused. I had no idea what I had done to embarass her. This is what I saw when I walked in! She had gotten a flower! Not from me, but from her daddy. Totally on his own! I was literally tearing up. What a sweet Daddy!

I then went down to see Courtney at her party and she had one too! She didn't feel great on this day, so she wasn't into smiling!
This is Courtney's Valentine, Scotty! They love each other! He affectionately calls Courtney "Corky" Courtney is the only one that calls him Scotty...his name is Scott. Isn't he cute?!
I got 3 roses too! He was so thoughtful! It was such a sweet thought. It made my day to see the girls get to feel special even more than myself getting flowers! We have a sweet valentine for sure! He's such a great girl dad!

Then on Friday Honey and Grandad came to play. Lindsey wanted to have a tea party, so of course Honey said yes. They had heart sandwiches and strawberries with chocolate! Courtney was taking a nap by this time, so she missed out, but luckily she doesn't know what she missed. It was cute to see Lindsey get so excited about it.

Uncle Allen....pray again!

Ok, so if you read my birthday post for my mom, I mentioned that Uncle Allen was there. It was so good to see him, but like I said there were some "episodes" or things that made us wonder. As of today, he is in ICU, again! Everything is starting like it did back in August AND everything they have done as far as tests are normal...again!

Bless their hearts! There they are, sitting in that hospital again, just where they were 6 months ago. We were all praising God and we still need to. They never figured out what it was that caused it, so even though this has happened before, they are basically at square one. So frustrating I'm sure for the doctors and their family. It is to me and I'm not even there.

My cousins have started back on their blog...it is on the right, so you can read there if you want to know more. They updated yesterday and today so far.

Please lift them up in prayer!

Happy Birthday MOM!

This is a day late, but sorry mom....had to post about our big news! :) I'm sure you are ok with it, since it means another grandchild for you!

This is mom....so cute!

Yesterday was mom's birthday! A milestone one....and so dad and I put together a small group to surprise her and have a party at her favorite resturant, Abuelo's! We told her we were going out to dinner with our immediate family for her birthday, so that made it easier. We didn't have to hide everything!


I ordered petifores and this is what they did! They turned out really cute. It worked out so well to be at a resturant and not have to cut a cake there and stuff! Plus they are super YUMMY!

Here they are getting here! She was so surprised it wasn't just us there!

This is mom going around hugging everyone. This is Uncle Allen that is our family miracle! (more on this later, pray for him. he's having some of the same symptoms that started that whole ordeal last summer/fall) But, he was here to help us celebrate! It was the first time I had seen him since last May and hadnt' seen him since he'd been through all of it. It was so nice to get to hug him!

Honey and her girls....is there room for one more on those laps??

Here is the friends that were there. Courtney mad friends with Mr. Tim and Mrs. Carol! She already knew Joe and Charlotte (aka Mrs. Char) from swimming at their house last summer with Honey and Grandad! There were a couple of other friends that couldn't make it.Here is the extended family that came--Uncle Allen, Aunt Margaret. My cousin Katherine (Allen and Margaret's oldest daughter) and her son Evan. Her husband Chris was working. Then Aunt Kay came. She is my great-aunt. So sweet!

Lindsey and Evan! They are so funny. They want to talk to eachother and see eachother, but then they don't really talk much! So cute! Evan turned 4 in December, so they are very close in age. We don't see them very often, but a few times a year. I love that they will grow up knowing eachother!

Our family! Look how tall Ryan is in comparison--ha ha! So funny! Maybe Lindsey and Courtney will be tall and balance us all out!

We had fun celebrating with Honey! She is so special to me. She is one of my best friends. I pray that I can be special to my girls like my mom is to me. We talk so many times a day and we talk about so much. I am thankful to have such a great relationship with her. She is a wonderful wife to my dad and I've learned to love her for that more and more as I appreciate their marriage and the love they have for eachother! She is an amazing HONEY to my girls! I love that she wants to see them and wants to be a special person in their lives. She is so loving, so caring and such a great HONEY to them. They love her and have a blast when they go to her house. I love the things that she does with them whether it is play doh, reading, singing, doing art or whatever it is that they want to do, she doesn't say no! For her birthday I got her Paula Deen's "My First Cookbook" for her to use with my girls. They love to cook with Honey. Plus, one time when they were at her house, Paula Deen was on tv. That was not long after mom and dad had been to Savannah. Mom told Lindsey that was her friend that she went to see. So, now EVERY time we see anything that has Paula on it, Lindsey points it out and shows me "Honey's friend!" I love it! So, now they can cook like "Honey's friend" Paula Deen! You go mom!

You are loved and I'm so happy to be able to say to you HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I Samuel 1:27

"For this child I prayed....

Ryan and I have been up and down and back and forth about having a 3rd child. It wasn't as "automatic" to us and having our first and second. We decided last fall that neither of us felt content so we would have ONE more baby! God blessed us and our desire! We are so happy! I am only 5 weeks pregnant, so please pray for a healthy baby. My other prayer request is that I won't be sick. I was not sick at all with Lindsey, felt awesome and could eat and do anything I wanted. With Courtney I was so nauseous that I ended up taking medicine for it the entire pregnancy. Either way I know it will be fine and worth it, but I just want this to be an easy pregnancy since I'm chasing a 4 and 2 year old around!

We just told the girls! I bought a calendar so I could show them how "far away" it would be until our little one arrived. We went through each month and wrote down every one's birthdays. Lindsey enjoyed that and Courtney was somewhat distracted (surprise, surprise). Then when we got to October, I told here that on "one of these days (pointing to the beginning of the month) mommy is going to have a baby!" Courtney didn't respond. Lindsey was almost speechless. She had a "goofy" grin on her face and said, "What is her name going to be?" Ha! That is funny. I told her we didn't know, but that what if it was a boy and not a her. She just laughed. I don't think Courtney even LISTENED to what we were talking about. Lindsey then very quickly moved on to wanting to figure out what else we could write on the calendar--much more fun than thinking about a baby, right?!