I am getting new furniture tonight. YEAH! Well, let me tell you about this furniture. It is my sisters old furniture. She likes to get furniture every few years. Most generally it is something that we like, so therefore, we end up getting the old stuff when she gets the new stuff. Funny! This time we actually are paying her something for it. Usually she doesn't ask for money--because she says well I'm just going to throw it away or something silly like that. Well, we actually have the means this time, and they could use the extra $$, so we both win.

My husband jokingly said, "why don't you just go with her to pick the new stuff so you know ahead of time what we will get in a few years." LOL!

I'll post pictures when we are all set up.

The boys get the lazy boy sofa (which was alos given to us--6 months old) in the "game room--the boy cave". The love seat, and tables will go into the garage until we decide what we'll do with it. Too much fun in this house.

Today we took the boys and Stephen to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. It was cute. We enjoyed the day with the boys. It seems that every weekend that I am off, we spend it cleaning, doing laundry and just catching up from the prior week. See, when I have the weekend off, I work the 7 days prior to get to that point. One week it is Thursday & Friday off, the next week it is Saturday & Sunday. Well, I decided to start the laundry and clean (well not super clean--but clean enough to get by) on Thursday evening that way we had Friday evening and Saturday to do whatever we wanted. We have enjoyed the day. Just being together, and no chores--well, the normal chores, but nothing extra, just maintenance.

Rob and I went out on a "date" last night. We just went to the mexican restraunt in the neighboring town, did a little shopping, and just kind of hung out. It was nice to have some alone time. The boys love it, (not too much of it), because they get to pick a frozen entree for supper. Wow! What a privelage.

I talked to my Mom today. She is doing well. The doctor told her that she was lucky that she had surgery when she did, it could have been fatal left much longer. Praise God for that.

Well, I must go for now.

Listen to this. It is great. Out of the mouth of babes.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zCdZwitrNoY

Well, I haven't posted much. Not that nothing is going, I'd have to say it much to the opposite of that. This will hopefully be insightful, and short at the same time.

**Jenny and Dean are doing wonderful with their new found freedom in Christ. It is so exciting to talk to her on the phone. I have been able to talk to her about once a week for sometime. I left her to have her space, then she started emailing me, and then it went to phone conversations. It is so great to see what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives. Please continue to lift them in your prayers, as the seek direction for their lives.

**My mom's surgery went well. It ended up being much worse than they expected, but they were able to repair the damage done. Evidently the gall bladder attached itself to her small bowel, and was causing problems with that and her liver. They removed the gall bladder, repaired the small bowel, and the liver. Things are improving each day. I'm so thankful that it didn't turn out like the this event.

**Work has been a little hectic. I had to let some one go about 2 weeks ago. I haven't had the best luck replacing her, therefore we've been working a little on the short staffed side of things. This isn't good when it is also a time of year for sickness. Then one of my other girls had her baby, so the week of the 14th-20 I worked all days except Sunday, and one of those days in particulare was extremely long. At any rate, we are now up to a decent staff level again. So things are starting to get better. Over all though, my job is fine. I really enjoy doing what I do. In fact, I'd have to say I love my job.

**Life at home is about the same. The boys are excelling in their studies. Reading levels are really high for their grades, math is the same. The boys have really adjusted to us both working full time, and having somewhat demanding jobs. Rob's job is great. He really enjoys his job also.

**We have been working through yet another theological issues. Sometimes we feel like we are going crazy, not really, but just a little. Why can't things just be plain and simple. We are definately still on a journey. Please pray for direction for us with this issue.

**I recieved a phone call from one of my long lost brothers. Yes, when I say long and lost that is exactly what I mean. I am not so sure that my husband has ever even met him, and we've been married 16+ years, dated for 2 before that. It was nice to hear from him. I miss my big brothers. My family has quit an interesting history, so please pray that I will not let my self be vunerable to things just for the sake of having a relationship with my brother. I don't exactly know how to express what I mean there.

**Well, I think I've spent enough time away from the boys, yet again. I must go for now.

I will leave you with this thought.

***The weight...people don't realize.
The weight of having to examine yourself all the time to see if you are measuring up to what Chirst calls you to is an even heavier law than Moses'. In American Evangelicalism this is sort of treated as if this is a great gift and encouraging. It isn't, it a form of law that if someone looks at it squarely the weight will cause them to go one way or another.
1.) I'm actually pulling this off. OR 2.) I'm niver going to pull this off. I'm not born again I guess.

This a quote from CFW Walter (hopefully I gave the correct credit.)

Just something to ponder.

I went to a REAL salon and got my hair done today. It was a great experience. Expensive, but I am so happy with my hair. My family is a little unsure of it, but I got tons of compliments today, every where I went, which was many places. The school, my store and the dentist office. Okay, the pictures are not the greatest, but they are self portraits.

Please help me pray for my family. My Mom is going in for some exploritory surgery this morning. Not exactly sure what is going on, but hopefully they will have some answers today.

Thanks, and Heather I will try and post something soon. LOL!

Today was an exciting day for our family. We were all baptized as believers and we joined the membership of Christ Presbyterian Church. My sister and her family were present. It made me so happy that they shared in our joy. Thanks for coming and sharing our day. God has brought our family, and my sisters family so far and I am so glad we are all together still. God is so faithful.

At the end of service a young man came up and introduced himself to my husband. He is a student at a college in Richmond, and he had Pastor Charlie (our pastor from Memorial Baptist) as a professor. Evidently he visited MBC quit a few times, and asked Pastor Charlie if there was a church closer in proximity for him that he'd be comfortable recommending, and guess where he sent him. Christ Presbyterian Church. It is so exciting to see the work that God is doing through our lives.

Continue to pray for Jenny and Dean. They are sure facing prosecution from the family. I've had a chance to talk to her a couple of times, and of course I never have long to talk, but I can see the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Must go for now. Have a blessed week.

Exciting News

Rob's sister Jenny and her husband Dean, the parents of these 3 darling children have left our former faith family. I know that sounds crazy to say "exciting news" and follow it by "left the old church". WOW! God is so faithful. He has seen fit to open their eyes to the false teachings that they've grown up in. It is a hard decision, and I have to say that, although we did it, I can't truthfully imagine making the decision and living so close to family--that is still in our former faith family. It was hard enough for our family to deal with, but we were not so close in proximity or other ways. Please help us pray for God's direction for them. I didn't get to talk much to Jenny while we were home for Thanksgiving, but Dean told Rob they weren't so sure where they were going to end up, but they were going to devote themselves to reading God's word and praying for direction. (that is exactly what we did, and look where we are today) God has so answered our prayers with this. I am trying to stay away, unless they want to talk and ask questions, because I do not want to sway them in any way. God will reveal to them as he see fit. It is so EXCITING! I do think that this stems from a few things, Rob has had the opportunity to witness to Dean on quit a few occasions, and I did post my testimony on my other blog. But, most of all God has openend their understanding and made them alive spiritually. Praise God for this exciting event.

Me & My Twin Sister

I forgot to post this picture from Thanksgiving. This is my family with my twin sister. I know that she knows who I am, honest, I can tell by her response to me when I talk to her. I apologize it didn't get a great picture of her face. She is beautiful. She has long fingers, thick blac wavy hair, big brown eyes. She lives in a hospital for handicap. It is a great facility. We don't get to visit very often, mainly because we don't get to Illinois often at all, however, she is well cared for. I can tell because we ALWAYS show up unannounced and she always looks good. My husband has stopped in their more than I--mainly from his past job when he would travel to pick up--he would stop in, just because he wanted to be sure she was being taken care of well. He is so wonderful like that. He sais he can tell she is in a good facility because he has been in SO MANY different facilities, and this is one of the best. Well, this isn't the best picture of my family, but it is us. The boys were a little nervous, well Zach was anyway. The other 2 remember more of our visits. Hey, I really can ramble can't I. Have a blessed day.

It looks like our family will be joining a church finally. It has been a long journey to find our homechurch. We didn't take it lightly at all. After all it has been over 2 years since we resigned. We visited and attending many, many churches. This church fits what we believe theologically. It is in line with everything that God has revealed to us.

We have learned so much on this journey. God has used so many people to teach us so much. He made us alive, and opened our understanding to his word. We are so thrilled that God chose our family. He knew exactly what we'd be, in all our imperfection, and chose us as a covenant family. Nothing we did derseved his Grace, but He, for His own glory chose us. How humbled I am when I think of this.

Christ Presbyterian Church in Richmond will be our home church. It will be official the first Sunday of January. We are looking forward to this day.

Homemade gifts

This is the gift each of my employees will recieve from me. I sure hope that they enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

**I forgot that we also made snowmen out of Nutter Butter cookies. They are super cute, and fun to make.

Dip a Nutter Butter Cookie in white chocolate, for the hat: a peppermint pattie in half, the scarf: a twizzler pull and peel, buttons: reeses pieces minis, some of them had eyes which were mini chocolate chips. The chocolate hardened and I forgot to put eyes on some of them, and then we decided that they were much more cute minus the eyes anyway.

Christmas Cookie Time

I was off work this weekend. Rob was on call for the Street Department. Well, I guess it was better that way, because he worked the entire weekend anyway. We got LOTS of snow. He worked about 7 hours on Saturday, and then 15 hours on Sunday. The boys and I took advantage of the snowy weather and made some Christmas cookies. Austin is dipping ritz crackers with peanut butter in chocolate. Jordan is dipping oreos in white chocolate. Zach was unwrapping peppermints for peppermint fudge (not made yet). Zach also dipped some pretzels in white chocolate. Then I made chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies and then 2 batches of buckeyes. I couldn't find my recipe so of course I used the internet, and chose the first recipe I found. WOW! Are they good. It was super simple. I froze the balls for 1/2 hour or so before I began dipping. Why? I asked myself why I had never done that before. What a time saver it was. (well, when you are from Illinois I guess it isn't too hard, because you dip the entire ball, but here in on the ohio state line, you make them look like buckeyes.) Well, we really enjoyed our weekend. We were snowed in with lots of candy and cookies--and of course the necessities.

The Northside Elementary Ambassadors.

This is the singing group Austin is involved in. They preformed this evening. It was a dinner theater. The kids did a fabulous job. I was blown away by the talent. They all looked so nice in their uniforms. The pictures is a little blurry, but I guess that is for the best, since it is not of just my children. This is a group of 3rd, 4th and 5th grade children. They each had to audition, were chosen and have worked very hard for this performance. It was great. I thought it was so neat at the end, as the guests left, the children were in a "receiving line" and they shook hands with all the 180 guests. Great job Mr. Hoggatt training the children. I'm so very thankful for a christian teacher, who loves music and takes so much of his personal time to have this group.

Christmas Card picture

Look at these hansdome boys. These are the pictures I used to make my Christmas cards. I thought the jammies were fun, and of course Jordan is a little beyond the "snuggle jammies". It was fun for the younger boys to have a new toy from Thanksgiving/Christmas to have in the picture. I'm pretty excited about the cards we created this year.

I LOVE family worship

Tonight in our family worship the question we worked on was this.

What is justification?

Justification is the act of God's free grace by which He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight. He does so only because He counts the righteousness of Christ as ours. Justification is received by faith alone.

Is that awesome or what?! God is so stinkin' AWESOME. Nothing we can do, or have done can earn us justification. It is totally an act of God.

What a thought to ponder.

A few pictures of the weekend. I'll post more later, and give some details. WE had a great weekend.

Zach making brownies

These are a few pictures of Zachary making his first pan of brownies.

They were YUMMY! I didn't take a picture of the finished product.

In Christ Alone

I love this song. Check out the you tube video. I don't know how to put the video on here, so you will have to link to it. It is a fabulous song. It is so rich and true. Listen/watch and be blessed.

Check out this blog.

My husband found this blog and saved it for me. I hadn't had time to read much on it until this morning. What a wonderful post. It is so true. Check it out if you have time. It is well worth the read.

Weekend fun. WOW! What a weekend we had. We stayed at home, with the exception of church on Sunday. It was ABSOLUELY WONDERFUL! The weather was beautiful. The boys played baseball outside for a while, we did some baking, and just simply enjoyed each others company. On Friday when I got home from work we ate supper, I made some caramel chex mix, and some haystacks. YUMMY!! Austin and Zach bought playdoh with their allowance, and they created all evening--like for about 4 hours. Cookie cutters everywhere, and lots of neat creation, I just wish again that I'd taken more pictures. Saturday we slept in--ahh this is the life--and when I woke up I thought, "I haven't made cut out cookies in forever." I made sugar cookie dough, and then made a pot of "White chicken Chilli", the boys enjoyed the weather outside for a while. We ate lunch, which was tacos--an all time favorite in this house. Tacos at least once a week. Then to decorate the million cookies. Really there were only about 65 cookies. They were divided between boys, and let them go. Zach got tired and left a few undone, so between Austin and I we finished them. Now, Austin, my artistic one, took great care with each cookie. It was just a wonderful weekend of family. Much needed relaxing.