Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for this little girl ... the one on the left. My daughter.

She makes me so happy!!!! :)

This photo was taken at the other little girl's birthday party. She turned 1. She and Audrey are only about 3 weeks apart in age. I was happy we could go and help celebrate. So I'm thankful for that, too!!

Happy Thankful Thursday. For what are you thankful?

Memory Verse Monday

This week's verse again comes from the sermon, from a series titled Hope Floats. This week was on perseverance and resilience - waiting through a trial.

Lamentations 3:24-26
²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
²⁵The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
²⁶ It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord

I really like how the Message Bible is worded:

²⁴ I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.
²⁵ God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
²⁶ It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.

God is it. He's the only one who can get me through this. I must look to God. I will wait for HIS answer. I will wait for HIS help. God will save me.

I looked at several different versions of this and I thought it was interesting that the words wait and hope were used interchangably. One version says wait in vs 24 while another version says hope. Then version A said hope in vs 25 and verson B says wait. They are synonymous in this context.

Waiting for the Lord is having Hope in Him.
Waiting for His response. Having the Hope that He will respond.

The Isrealites waited for the Lord to rescue them from Egypt. But they didn't wait patiently. They didn't understand God's timing and God's plan. Consequently, when they were taken to the promised land, they didn't enter. God didn't give them their land because they didn't wait patiently or quietly or silently. They didn't trust God. They didn't have Hope in Him.

One of my favorite hymns is one that is probably not well-known. It's one my mother had memorized, so when my sister and I were acting up, we would sing it. I've not yet met anyone else who knows this hymn.

My Hope Is in the Lord
Hymn lyrics and Music by Norman J. Clayton

Verse 1
My hope is in the Lord
Who gave Himself for me,
And paid the price of all my sin at Calvary.

Chorus
For me He died,
For me He lives,
And everlasting life and light He freely gives.

Verse 2
No merit of my own
His anger to suppress.
My only hope is found in Jesus’ righteousness.
Chorus

Verse 3
And now for me He stands
Before the Father’s throne.
He shows His wounded hands and names me as His own.
Chorus

Verse 4
His grace has planned it all,
’Tis mine but to believe,
And recognize His work of love and Christ receive
Chorus

Friday Happenings

New/Noteworthy:

About two weeks ago, we cancelled our TV service.  We just decided we needed to start saving money.  We have been watching movies and streaming many things from Netflix and Hulu.  It's also an exercise in creativity ... what else can I do besides channel surf????

The hall bathroom is completed and usuable.  The contractors have begun gutting out the Master bath.

Interesting Activity:

Went shopping for the kids on Monday.  Audrey had the attention of all the other customers in the store.

Biggest Accomplishment:

Audrey slept great 3 of the last 4 nights.  We're finding a routine and being consistent between home and daycare is helping a lot.

Weekend Plans:

Don't think we have any tomorrow.

Sunday after church we're going to a friend's house to discuss plans for writing worship songs for the church.

Fun Photos:

Bathroom: Before

The dark around the toilet is mold growing UNDERNEATH the linoleum

Bathroom: After

Memory Verse Monday

Today's memorization Monday verse comes from the sermon from yesterday.  Another sermon from the series, Hope Floats.  This week we talked about Core Strength and how it is the center of all that we physically do.  God is our core spiritual strength and we can't do anything without Him.


Isaiah 12:2
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and will not be afraid,
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation

11 Months Old

sigh..... My little baby girl is 11 months old yesterday.  To celebrate completing her 11th month of life (and beginning her final month of 'infancy') we (Josh, Audrey and myself) went to lunch and spent the day just enjoying each other.


I can't believe my little baby girl is going to be a year old in less than a month.  The last year has just flown by.


Since 10 months she has mastered many of the skills she's been working on. 

• She can take bites out of food
• Starting to stand on her own, although still very hesitant
• Likes to pet the dog, but is intimated by her when Sheila lays down
• Has become more interested in her own toys than before
• LOVES music and will dance to anything she hears
• Gets so proud when she pushes the button on her music toys to make the music play
• Started going to the nursery at church and really likes to play in there too
• Found the power button to the stereo and likes to watch the light turn on and off when she presses it
• Had her first trip to the beach

We've started using cloth diapers.  I really like them; not nearly as much work as I thought they would be.  There's a slight learning curve associated with them, and daycare lady is having a difficult time adjusting.  Hopefully soon she'll really get it down and we can switch full time to cloth.

Neighbor lady, today, gave us two things her children have outgrown - a Fisher Price slide and a Little Tikes plastic police car.  I'm very excited, because it's yet another thing to add to our collection of baby things, and we didn't have to spend a penny on them.  :)  We went in the backyard to play with them today.

She liked climbing up the slide more than going down

She got in the car and Daddy pushed her around the yard.

Kept looking like she was cruising down Main Street, relaxed at the wheel.

But then she had to take all the stickers off ... just like her momma.

Josh and I are blessed beyond belief with Audrey and all the wonderful free things we've received.  We have seriously paid for almost nothing that we have, and we are not wanting for anything.  God has been good to us!!!!

Friday Happenings

As promised, I'm trying to revive the Friday Happenings Blog post.

New/Noteworthy: Audrey is 11 months old tomorrow.

Interesting Activity: its hard to choose one. I'll go with bathroom being remodeled.

What I learned: water is a very damaging force!

Biggest Accomplishment: as a family we did lots of yardwork and got things looking very nice.
Also got taxes mailed.

Weekend Plans: RELAX

Fun Photo: 

Josh and Audrey Playing in the grass together

Family Time

This weekend was a nice quiet weekend for our family. We were able to get the house clean and just enjoy each other's company. Josh and Audrey had some nice quality playtime in the front yard. See the pretty flower in her hair???

Then Josh and Kymberly made peanut butter cookies together. That was great fun for both of them. Josh makes the world's best PB cookies. And Kymberly really likes to help out in the kitchen, so he taught her his secrets.

Also on Saturday, we got our scrubby clothes on and got dirty. We picked weeds, we moved bark around, we mowed the lawn, trimmed back bushes, and we took out bushes. We removed 4 evergreen bushes that just grew uncontrollably every year. They weren't very attractive, and they were hard to keep trimmed nicely. Two of them sat just outside Andrew's window, so he got no light into his room. Now they are GONE!!! We also cleaned out the bark and weeds in the back corner. Took out the border that was there and mixed up the dirt. Finally, we sprayed some grass seed in all the dead spots and the new dirt areas. The backyard looks significantly bigger. And cleaner. The summer we first moved in we cleaned out the back corner, but we never did anything with it. It just kept getting weeds. So I hope that the grass will take and we'll just have to mow. That same summer we also put down some seed in a couple dead spots as a test. The seed took really well and that is now the prettiest grass in the whole yard. The day after this extensive yard work came rain. And more rain. 2 full days of rain, in fact. So the seed got a good initial watering. Now if we can only keep the squirrels out of the yard......

Thankful Thursday Revived

I was looking through my blog archive the other day and I realized I used to blog a lot more about other things.  I had a Thankful Thursday; I had a Friday Happenings.  I think I'll revive those.  I make no promises to do them regularly, but I'll certainly try.


This edition of Thankful Thursday goes out to our landlord.  She has been incredibly patient and understanding of the house that she inherited.   She's gone above and beyond the minimum for a landlord and really given our family a great home in which to live.  


Currently we are in the middle of a bathroom remodel.  Josh discovered some water damage in the drywall.  Then some water damage in the floor.  The shower and toilet were both leaking.  We contacted our landlord and she got a contractor out right away to investigate. The damage was extensive.  And to add to it, it was known about prior to the previous landlord's passing.  He tried to fix it, but only put a band-aid on the problem, so there was lots of water damage and mold again.  We are now getting 2 brand new bathrooms.  


It's a inconvenience right now, but it will be nice when they are done.

Memory Verse Monday

Back with another addition of Memorization Monday.  The verse this week is from our sermon yesterday.  Our current series is on Hope.  I thought this passage was very poignant and deserved memorizing.

2 Corinthians 4:13-15
¹³It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.