My weekend

Chris went away on a men's retreat over the weekend, which left me with *lots* of time to do *whatever i wanted* (aside from the part when I was dealing with kids ;~)). So... on friday night, i went to my aunt & uncle's house & took pictures of their family for christmas. Then i spent the rest of the evening with my mom. Saturday morning, we spent the morning tie-dying. it was a BLAST! we made all sorts of fun shirts. maybe i'll take a picture some day & show you. After that, a friend came over, & i took pictures of 3 of her kids. THEN, i had a sitter & went out with a girlfriend, and THEN, another friend joined us, and we watched movies until late. So fun!

Here's one of the pictures that i took of my friend's daughter. isn't she darling!?

A New Post For Heather

I have some extra time to post today, so i thought i share some of my favorite pics from this summer when Heather came to visit. Thanks to Eric for the pics of me & heather together. :)

The Night Life

When we got our dog, we put her food outside, right under our bathroom window. Shortly after, we realized we were going to have to bring the food inside every night, to protect it from the many animals who wanted to share with Shasta. What usually happens, though, is that we forget, until we hear an animal crunching the food outside, & then we have to scare them away, so we can grab the food really quick. Well, the other night, i looked outside, & found this guy.

He refused to be scared away! i made noises to scare him, & he just came closer! at one point, he started to walk away (finally!), so i opened the door to grab the food. As soon as he heard the door open, he turned around & came back! i'm sure he would've walked right into the house, if i had let him! this is him, standing on his hind legs to get a better look at me, while I took his picture through the window.

Over the last week or so, Ricky Raccoon has been replaced by a cute little Pepe le Pew. (I'm not about to take pictures of him! He might spray me!) and once, he brought his whole family of about five skunks! The other night, after we scared him away once, I looked out the window, to investigate a little noise outside. There was Pepe le Pew, having a stand off with Ricky! Pepe was fiercely guarding the food, so Ricky wouldn't get to it. Finally after several flicks of the tail, & some scratching at the ground from Pepe, Ricky turned around & walked away. I was kind of surprised, since raccoons are known to be kind of agressive. But i guess nothing compares to a little spritz of Stink.

My Children Are Missing

I'm convinced that someone has abducted my children and replaced them with perfect little angels.

The other night, for dinner, I made chicken with stir-fry veggies. The second we were done praying, my boys were begging for the vegetables. "I want *lots* of vegetables, please!"
and then, "Wow, Thanks for making such a great dinner, Mom! This is my favorite meal *ever*"
"MMM! This is *so* good!"
"Can I have *more* vegetables??"
"I *love* this broccoli!"

As far as I'm concerned, whoever took my children can keep them. I like the new ones *just* fine!" :)

The little old lady...

Zachy always amuses me with the way he looks at the world. He thinks about things (or at least verbalizes them) differently than most kids. Today, i picked him up from preschool, & asked him what he did. He tod me that he heard about "a very old lady who ate all these different animals, like a dog and a spider and a fly!"

so I said, "Wow! that's crazy! I wonder why someone would do that?"

"I'm pretty sure she did it to catch the bugs that she ate.... and i'm pretty sure she ate the whole cow without even cooking it or anything! .... mom, do people drain the blood out before they eat things like that?"

"yes, they drain the blood."

"how do they do that?"

"I don't know... but you know, Zachary, that's just a pretend story. A person couldn't *really* eat all of those animals, right?"

"yah... unless they cut them up into tiny little pieces first.... and did you know she ate a dog and a cat, too!?"

"no!"

"yah! and they tickled her in her tummy!"

:) I don't think I know of anyone who's put so much thought into that story before. :)

I wonder what he'll be when he grows up. :)

Fun

Thanks, Jessica for sending me a link to some fun videos by MercyMe, a popular christian band (well-known for their song, "I can Only Imagine".)

I thought all my girlfriends from Dallas would enjoy this one, especially. ;~)


Here's "Ice Baby"


and "The Eye of the Tiger"


"Never Gonna Give You Up"

the "talk"

okay... so i've tried & tried to figure out a way to post the podcast of sunday's service onto this blog, but i can't figure it out. So, if you'd like to hear it, you can go to our church's website and click in the bottom left-hand corner where it says "new life podcast." That will bring up an itunes window w/a few podcasts from our church. ours is "road trip #4." you can click on the play button in the top left corner to listen, or if you want to keep it forever, because you think we're so wonderful ;~), you can click on "get episode," & it will upload to your itunes account (assuming you have one).

There was a couple who shared before us, so our interview doesn't start until about 33 min. into it. you can skip them if you want (though they had a great story, too). FYI, we shared for about 30 min, so if you're going to listen, you'll wanna make sure you have enough time. :)

if any of you computer geniuses who read my blog, know how to post the podcast, let me know, & i'll do that instead. :) Thanks!

Let me know if you listen, i'd like to know your thoughts. :)

Last Sunday

Over the past month or so, our church as been doing a series called "road trips," where the pastor interviews a person or two, and they share their testimonies. This has been a really powerful time, because not only do we get to know the people in our church in a little deeper way, but God is really using these testimonies to touch everyone's hearts.

Last Wednesday our pastor asked, Chris & me to share *our* testimony on Sunday. Most of you know, to some degree, that Chris & I have had a pretty difficult marriage over the years, but this last year, God has really changed Chris' heart, which in turn, has really changed our marriage. After giving up on ever serving God together it felt like such a privilege to be able to stand up share this story! It felt like such a gift from God. :)

Through the week, Chris & I prayed & prayed, & were very excited to see what God would do on Sunday. It went wonderfully! I felt like we were both able to articulate the things we wanted to say, and we got to speak about how God reached into our hopeless situation & bring life. Lots of people talked to us afterward & thanked us for sharing. it was great!

This was a very special time to me, especially, because it was the first time for me & chris to minister together publicly - it kind of felt like an initiation. :) The fact that we would ever be able to do that, after where we've come from is truly a miracle!! Yay, God!

I can't wait to do it again! ;~)

a great Zachy-ism

along with the theme of, "you're the best mom i ever had!" that i posted a couple weeks ago:

zachy told me today, "you're the best mom in the whole world! I never had a mom who gave us our *own* sponges and let our grandma come visit!" :)

CELEBRATE!

Chris got his passport on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

Today was the kids' first day of school! YAY! CRAZY, BUSY, FUN! Tomorrow will be Chloe & Gideon's first day to *go* to school! (if you remember, we're doing a homeschool/public school hybrid) They're just THRILLED! Tuesdays (9-2) will be art, P.E, music, & spanish. Thursdays will be history & science, & the rest of the time they'll be with me! Evy & Zachy will be in preschool tomorrow, too, so i'll have TWO HOLE HOURS to myself! yay! i plan to spend some time w/my mom. :) should be nice. --in the future i plan to use that time for shopping & errands. Thursdays, Zachy will be in preschool, but evy will be w/me.

It's a really full schedule, but i'm really excited. YAY!

"wow! I get to give birth *and* change diapers!"

My mom found a bunch of cute cards the other day & showed them to me. The were so wonderful that I had to check out the website of the person who made them. These were some of my favorites. :)