Good Songs and Chick-Fil-A

hey all! I have a couple of things to share in my post today. First of all I just have to tell you all about two new songs that I have heard in the last week that have really impacted me. I have always loved music and I really believe that God uses music and lyrics to speak to me regularly. So this week I was listening to Calvary 88.5 and they played two songs which both moved me to tears. The first one is a new Christmas song by this artist named Mandisa. She was actually a contestant on a season of American Idol and is now a Christian artist. The song is a duet with Matthew West, and it is called "Christmas Makes me Cry" I know it sounds like kind of a depressing title, but this song has the most amazing lyrics that just totally put into perspective the amazing blessings that most of us have during this time of year. The other song that has become a new favorite of mine is by the artist that I have talked about before on my blog and I am actually going to see her in concert tonight....Sara Groves. The song is called "How is it Between Us?" This song totally speaks to how we as moms and wives get so busy doing so many things and God so often gets left out of our days, and then we are left feeling empty. It is just a simple song that has such an awesome message. So I just thought i would share those with you so you can hopefully hear them in the next few weeks.

The other thing I wanted to share with you all is about Chick-Fil-A. So if you know me very well you know that I LOVE this place! I am usually there at least once a week. Besides having the best chicken ever, they are just a company built on integrity. The CEO of chick-fil-a is a Christian man who travels around speaking at different events, and most of you know that they are one of only a few businesses left that doesn't open on Sundays. Well, last week my mom and I were eating there and Camryn fell backward in a chair and split her head open. It was pretty bad and there was a lot of blood, but she turned out to be ok, and it has healed up pretty well. But James, the owner of the Olathe branch, was SO awesome that day, helping us however he could and then he invited me and the kids to come in for a free meal just to let us have a more "positive" experience, even though it wasn't their fault at all. So we went today for our free meal and they basically rolled out the red carpet for me and totally served me the whole time! It was so awesome! So I just wanted to send out an extra plug for you all to go to chick-fil-a because i think they are the best!!

So it is officially the Christmas season! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this time of year. But I just really don't like the idea of starting with all the Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving. I think it takes away from Thanksgiving, plus most of what the big business and media is trying to do by starting Christmas music and other things earlier is to get as much money out of the consumer as possible. Because we all know Christmas is all about buying and receiving gifts, right??!! WRONG! SO, that is my little rant for the day. All to say that MY Christmas season has officially begun! And so I decided to change up the blog to reflect the season. I LOVE Christmas music. It is even hard for me to wait till now to pull out the Christmas music to listen to. I am going to a Christmas concert this thursday with two of my favorite artists, Bebo Norman and Sara Groves, so I am really excited about that!
Well, we had a great time with our family for Thanksgiving. Saturday we had a Thanksgiving celebration with my family in Wichita. I drove down Saturday morning with my sister and the kids. Rich stayed here because he had worked all night at a hospital as part of his class. It was a really awesome time for me to spend with my sister. It is so hard for us to get together, and lately I have really been missing her, so it was much needed time with her in the car just talking. We drove back that evening, and the kids actually did really good, they slept almost all the way home.
So, it is Monday again. Isn't it so much fun to try and get your kids back into the routine after a long break?? Getting Grace to school on time was such a chore this morning. She is just so slow in the mornings. All they want to do is watch cartoons, and meanwhile I am trying to loudly encourage them to get their clothes on and eat their breakfast. Oh, so much fun. And of course I have like 10 loads of laundry to do today, Oh the joy! We have the house pretty much totally decorated, but this is going to be the first year that we put lights on the outside of our house. My friend Allyson and I worked together to come up with a plan to have our husbands help each other put up the lights so that maybe it would actually get done, so we will see. Well, the kids have been asking me to play outside since grace got home from school so i guess i better let them play for awhile and enjoy this great weather while it lasts! See you soon!

Give Thanks!

Enter his gates with Thanksgiving,
And his courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him; bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting,
And his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:4-5

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We had a wonderful night spent at my husband's grandparent's farm last night where 10 adults and 9 children had a slumber party of sorts. All the kids slept in one room on the floor in sleeping bags, and the rest of us stayed up and played cards and then slept throughout the house on air mattresses. We really didn't get much sleep at all, but it was very fun and the kids of course had a blast with all their cousins. Then we had an amazing meal today with close to 50 people. It was so much fun and many memories were made. I hope all of you had an awesome day with your families and remembered to give thanks to the God who pours out blessings on his children. Here are three things among so many that I am thankful for today.

1. The men and women who are serving our country in the armed services so we can have the freedom to celebrate holidays like today.

2. Of course my family-it is so easy to take for granted being able to share a hot, bountiful meal with people you love, while so many in this country are alone and hungry today.

3. Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, etc, etc, etc......(yummm, I am getting hungry again!)

So it is Thanksgiving week! First of all, what is with the weather?! This is craziness! Saturday and today were sooo beautiful! But, then Gary Lezac the weatherman says that it is probably going to snow on Wednesday night and on Thursday! Well, that is Kansas for you! So, our weekend was busy as usual. The kids played outside for most of the day on Saturday while I went to a Stampin Up Christmas card party at my friend Jenn's house. It was, of course, so fun as all Stampin Up parties are, and we made some really cool stuff. Then on Saturday night I got to go out for a girl's night with all of my best girl friends from high school and college. One of my friends, Jen, moved to Virginia in July, and she was back in town so I got to see her and hang out and it was soooo fun! We went to P.F.Chang's on the plaza (YUUUUMMMMM!) and then one of my friends, Brooke, her parents live on a condo off the plaza which has a room upstairs where we just got to sit and talk and hang out. It was just such a great time with friends who I don't get to see a lot!
Yesterday was very relaxing, just hanging out...watching the chiefs lose...again!!Oh well, I did watch the Amazing Race and my favorite couple won, so that helped!

So, today the exciting news is that Camryn has gone potty in her potty 3 times!!!! Once yesterday and two times today!! We are on our way to being diaper free!!!!!
I am so proud of her and I took this picture of her sitting on her potty, and i tried to keep it decent. We are so proud of her!


On my friend Jenn's blog she posts three reasons that she is thankful on every post, and it is just the coolest thing to read all the things because it really shows how God does bless us so much each day, even on those days that it is harder to find something. So in honor of Thanksgiving week I will be posting three things every day that i post this week. So here they are:

1. God's amazing heart of mercy (If you were at church yesterday you know)

2. My girl friends from high school who have been with me through so much and whose friendships I treasure more than they know. I love you girls!

3. The gorgeous weather that we have had this weekend!

Rough Day

So, today hasn't been the greatest day. OK, honestly, it's been pretty crappy. Some of the reason why it isn't great have to do with my own choices and stupidity, like the fact that I have not been smart or careful at all about how much i have been spending lately and so we are really suffering the consequences of that. And I have just said some things today to different people that in hindsight I should not have said, and am now worrying over what the consequences of that will be and how to apologize for my own stupidity. But some of it has been just stuff that happens, like Camryn getting bitten on the face by another child today while she was in childcare for my bible study, and since then she has just been super crabby all day long.(not like i don't blame her). It just has been a rough day. So, tonight I really hope to go over to one of my friend's houses to do some scrapbooking to relieve some of the tension. We'll have to see what my husband says. I am glad it is Friday. So I am sorry to be a downer today, it's just been that kind of a day. oh, well, we all have them. Hopefully I will be in better spirits for the next post. See you soon!

New Baby Card

This is a baby card that I have had made for about a week now for one of my best friends, Jeanna.(The picture is not that good because I took it with my cell phone instead of my camera, because my camera is not working right now.)She just had her third child today, Lucy Caron Lichtenberger, at 2:11pm today and I hear she is beautiful just like her mom! Jeanna and her husband James have been really awesome mentors and friends to us over the past year. They are also the leaders of our small group, and James is in charge of the student ministry at our church. So we get to see them a lot, which i love. I have really been praying for Jeanna and the delivery of Lucy, so praise God that everything ended up good and now they have a beautiful new addition to their already beautiful family! I can't wait to meet her!
Other than that news today has been pretty ordinary. But tonight is going to be really good because I usually work at Old Navy every Tuesday night, but tonight they didn't schedule me and so I am going to instead go to Borders and just spend a much needed extended time doing my bible study. I LOVE just going to Borders and sitting in the coffee shop and reading. I used to do this all the time pre children...ahhhh, how life changes......for the better, of course, just different. so, catch you all later!

OK, so I am not so good at posting over the weekends. This weekend I worked a lot at Old Navy. It is definitely that time of year, because it is getting so busy. I really like working when it is like that though because unlike so many who work in the retail world, my goal is to just spread the Spirit of Jesus to every person who i see while i am working even is that is just through a smile. I just can't stand it when i am out somewhere and people have the worst attitudes,especially during the Christmas season. i know it can get stressful as it is busier, but I am going to try my best to be as positive as I can even on the busiest days.

Saturday night after I got home from work Rich told me that Camryn had thrown up like four times that evening and then she continued to be sick through Sunday morning so I stayed home from church with all the kids just in case they got sick too. Almost all of my friends have had this bug going in their families in the last couple of weeks, and I thought we were going to avoid it ,but no such luck. I am just praying that no one else gets it, especially Rich. I don't know why but I would rather be sick than for him to get sick. I just need him to be well, and he has so much more to be doing right now anyway with school and work.

So I know that most of my friends have posted this on their blogs today, but it is just so heavy on so many of our hearts today and the more people who read about it and say a prayer, the better. A couple at my church had a baby boy, Evan Michael, about a week ago and soon after he was born they discovered he had a heart condition. He has been at Children'g Mercy hospital in the NICU since he was born and he is undergoing open heart surgery to correct the problem this morning. The doctors say that he is a prime candidate for the surgery and that he has a 95% chance of coming through the surgery, but even so, it is going to be a long road to recovery, and their family could use all the prayers they can get. I have felt so connected to all of my friends and church family today because I know that we are all united in prayer today for the Vonmoss family. It is such a powerful thing to know that you are only one of such a huge number of people lifting up something in prayer, but that each prayer is absolutely heard by God and is so significant. Here is a blog that Evan's parents have updating on his condition and how they are doing.

So ending on a lighter note I finally got the CD of all the pictures of our family that my friend allyson took. You can see for yourself how amazing they are, and this is only a few. Thank you so much, allyson, for spending the time to take such amazing pictures of our family!!

Leaf Fun

This afternoon we went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and play in the leaves. The kids insisted on wearing their dress-up outfits. I just love the carefreeness (i know i invented that word) of kids when they play in the leaves. Pure joy. I am taking them all to get their flu shots later this evening so this joy is very short lived, i am sure. Cole and Camryn are usually fine with shots, they cry a little, but Grace is just a basket case. She has such a low tolerance for pain, and she usually cries for at least an hour afterward. I told the kids that I would take them to get ice cream and then go to Borders if they were brave. Well, hope all is well with all of you. Don't forget to keep leaving those comments, I just LOVE reading them!

Good Day

Today was so good. We had MOPS this morning and it was SO fun! My friend Marietta, who is a hair stylist, and her friend, Tracy gave a presentation on fun make-up and hair techniques. It was just so awesome. They did an amazing job! I also got the privilege of being one of the models that they used, so I got to get a make-over. I wish I would have had someone take a picture so i could show you all. She did what was called a "smoky eye" on me, which is a very dramatic look for like a formal, and i honestly don't think i could even begin to try and do this look on myself if I wanted to, but it really was so fun. I think all of the other ladies really liked it and had fun too, I just love MOPS! The other AWESOME thing that happened at mops was that I won the meal! We always give away a meal with a drawing and today i won! So Linda Jensen brought me a meal, and it was FABULOUS! Someone bringing you a home-cooked meal has to be the best thing ever. So I still haven't done the once a month cooking that i was going to do with my mom. I am still trying to gather some recipes, so if anyone has any good ones send them my way please! Then tonight we had youth group and we started a new series on the fruits of the spirit. We had a longer small group time which was really good because I never feel like we have enough time. I could sit and talk to the girls forever. Well, I am off to bed after a very satisfying day!

I know, I know, it has been forever since i last posted. It is actually not because I have been busy or anything, but simply because we haven't really had anything new and exciting going on in the last few days worth posting. We of course had a pretty busy and full weekend, but nothing really happened out of the ordinary in our family, except we did get some more family photographs taken by Allyson, but I haven't actually gotten to see them yet, so I will post as soon as I get all of them. So today Cole and Grace both had school and so Camryn and I hung out and I tried to work on my bible study. We just started this new study on prayer, and our leader Lisa is kind of just putting a lot of different stuff together to create the curriculum, and letting the Holy Spirit be the primary teacher. It was an awesome first week and the stuff that she has us doing this week are so awesome too, but I am finding it much more difficult to do with my kids awake then my other studies. I decided this is definitely the study that is going to test my will to get up in the mornings. Because we are really spending concentrated time in prayer it really has to be at a time when it is really quiet, and obviously that only comes in the early morning here before the kids get up. This is when i always feel like is the best time to have time with God anyway, but I just keep battling my selfish nature that wants to stay in bed until the last possible moment. I was doing pretty good for a while this summer, but I have really fallen out of the habit lately. So, I hope that through this study I can renew my commitment to giving the first part of my day to God.
So it really feels like November today, BRRR! I am always so ready for the cold weather to get here, and then I am usually done with it by early January. This is my favorite time of year though, I am already anticipating the Christmas season. Of course, if you look around, people try to start the season so early these days. It kind of irritates me because I know that the media and big businesses try to capitalize on the spirit of the season and begin their ploys to make you buy, buy, buy. I always am in constant battle to try and resist getting sucked up in everything else that comes with the season and just focus on what is most important-Jesus.
Well, we are off to the library to find the kids some books, I haven't taken them in a while and they have been asking lately. See you all soon!

Check out this video: I Saw What I Saw

This is a music video from one of my favorite Christian artists, Sara Groves. I have told some of my friends about it, and it used to be on my My Space page, but I thought i would post it so everyone could see it. It is a video with footage from a trip to Rwanda that Sara Groves took, and her music and lyrics are always so powerful. I think she totally captures the feelings that you have when you go on any missions trip. This video made me bawl when I first watched it. I have a HUGE heart for the people in Africa, and it is my dream to go there someday. So enjoy the video and let me know what you think!
PS- You will have to push pause on my player at the bottom first, and I am not sure why there are 2 of the videos, but it took me forever to get this on here so I didn't want to mess it up by trying to take one off.

Halloween Fun

So the night of candy mania is over! Seriously, this holiday is not very toddler and preschool age friendly. I know they absolutely love it, and they do look SO cute in their little costumes, but it is just hard. For instance-this year Cole wanted to be Spiderman, of course, because he is obsessed with Spiderman, and so we bit the bullet and bought the Spiderman costume, which of course, is not cheap. But the costume has a face mask with it that just has little holes for eyes, and so you can hardly see out of it. Cole didn't like that, so he didn't want to wear the face mask. SO i had the genius idea to go out and get a pack of face paint to paint his face like Spiderman, and mind you, I never got an E in art back in elementary school, I always got an S, (which really irked me because I thought E stood for effort, which I always gave great effort, the result just wasn't really good) ANYWAY, I am not an artist so I was pretty nervous to try to paint his face, but after about 45min. of painting I got it done, and I thought it actually turned out really great, but as soon as it was done Cole started running around like he does, and it immediately started to rub off! I was so mad, and I kept telling him...sit still! don't move around so much!......yeah right!! Well, it was what it was, and Rich was actually pretty impressed.

SO, Grace was Aurora, or Sleeping Beauty for those of you Disney princess amatuers, and Camryn was an adorable ladybug/butterfly thing. They all looked precious of course but it was pretty late when we got started, and cold, and they just have a pretty short attention span for this kind of stuff. But we went to Rich's parents house and then to my parent's house where they each had special treat bags for the kids, which were so sweet, and my parent's always do sweet things like that, and the kids of course love it so much, and the toys that they put in there are always so fun, and my parents are big on healthy foods, and so they have great snacks without sugar. Thank you so much mom and dad for the fun bags, the kids loved them! And my parents also had yummy vegetable beef soup for us that was a perfect way to warm up after trick-or-treating. So, all in all it was a really fun night, but I think it will get more fun as the kids get a little older. And of course the daily battles over the candy has begun....but I am determined to stay strong! Alright, hope everyone else had a safe and fun Halloween!