a sweet prayer

As i have said before i am doing beth moore's esther study and it is awesome. i know people around me get tired of me saying things about the study, but when i am in one of her studies everything seems to relate. This week was no exception. On the first day of the study beth was talking about how sometimes temptation seems to be like a battering ram that incessantly bangs at your door daily. And we as followers of Christ need to stop trying to rely on our moods, and instead rely on a mind set that is on victory over the temptation. I have always had poor will power. I am really trying to figure out why, but for some reason i am just not good at setting my mind to something and sticking to it. It's weird because i am a strong person in other areas, but God has such a work to do with me still in the area of will. In the past it has been with some more self destructive things that i have dealt with, but right now to be honest it is with food, and staying on a healthy eating plan. I know everyone deals with this in some capacity, but i just feel like i have such weak willpower, and i need to surrender my will over to God and allow him to give me a powerful mindset that can overcome temptation. In the study beth ends her day by asking that we as women would pray a prayer of scripture for her and for each other. I thought it was amazing and just what i needed, so here it is.

My beloved sister, may God be allowed to work such steadfastness

of mind in you that "the bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze,

and your strength will equal your days" (Deut. 33:25)

Just some random thoughts...

So I just wanted to post some things that i am really liking right now:

1. The Beth Moore Esther study that i am leading right now-every time I do one of her studies i think that this one is my favorite, and this one is no exception.....amazing! And i love teaching. And I love all the ladies that are in it with me.

2. This song that is playing which i heard on this blog that i regularly follow. She has no idea that i exist because she is totally a blog celeb, but everything she does is sickeningly cute.....but i can't get enough! (Also, i am totally not music savvy, so this song might be totally 2008, and everyone has already heard it, but i had never heard it and i LOVED it!)

3. The small group that Rich and I recently started in, and the fact that we are about to start studying one of my favorite books of the bible, Acts, in this group.

4. Iced Tea-Since i have chosen to give up pop this is pretty much all i drink all day long.

5. Slumdog Millionaire-This movie totally rocks. I love that they dance at the end. I think the girl in it is so gorgeous. And it is just an amazing story.

6. The fact that we are having our basement finished right now, and it will be done by the end of next week!! (pics to come soon)

7. The Bachelor-I am shamelessly addicted (thanks to Jenn for making me watch last season's finale) and i have strong opinions about which girls i like and don't like, so ask me anytime if you are interested.

8. The progress that i am making toward my weight loss goal

Plug for a friend

So i have really begun to realize lately how i have some of the most creative friends ever. I wanted to give a plug for one of my great friends who has been my friend since high school, and i love her dearly. She and her husband moved to Virginia a couple of years ago so her husband could attend Virginia Tech's medical school which was a total bummer on my end, but very good for them. She is a teacher there, but is also an incredible photographer. Here is a link to her website, and if you know anyone who lives in the area of Blacksburg, VA who could use her, let them know!

First Monday of a new year...

So a good friend of mine always said that she likes to start something new on a monday. So as the first Monday of the new year, i thought i would start my resolutions today. They really aren't anything different or out of the ordinary for resolutions. Pretty much they are things that i have been saying i want to do for awhile, and yes, i know that 99.9% of resolutions made in the first of January fail, but i won't let the pessimists stop me. i am going to do it anyway. and i thought i would blog about it so my friends, if i have any that still read my blog, could keep me accountable. So if you are reading this, i urge you to ask me about how this is going in a couple of weeks. My first resolution is, of course, to be more healthy. But don't worry, i know that is ridiculously vague so here is the action steps that go along with it.

1. Say bye-bye to ALL pop (sniff, sniff)

2. Eat a healthy breakfast (this may not sound like much to some of you, but i never eat breakfast, i just don't feel hungry at all early in the morning, and i am rushing around trying to get my kids fed and off to school, so it just doesn't happen.)

3. Do some form of real excercise for 20 min a day (again, not much but when you are doing nothing...)

So that is resolution #1, and resolution #2 is also pretty boring and non-original, but it is totally necessary. It is to wake up one hour earlier. The really good thing about this one is that i am going to be leading a beth moore bible study on esther starting this friday, and i soooo excited about it, and am a beth moore junkie, so i plan on preparing and doing my study in the mornings, while i eat my healthy breakfast ;)

So again, i welcome people's feedback and definitely need people to hold me accountable. And i would love to hear your resoutions if you are willing!

Best Friends for Life

So I haven't written on my posts on here for a while, and today is not going to be much of an exception because i would never be able to do justice in words to what i am feeling as i write this one. Tomorrow, on new years day, our family will have to say goodbye for now to some friends of ours that over the last couple of years have become like family. Our friendship with the lichtenberger family really started when rich and i joined their small group, about three years ago. Then we have had the priviledge of serving with them on the student ministries team at church, and jeanna and i have been in various bible studies together. And through all of that, our children have grown so close too. As parents you want nothing more for your children than to grow up having such strong friendships with other kids that totally love jesus, and shelby and jesse have so been that for my kids. And precious lucy has allowed me to love on a baby when she would actually let me hold her (she is quite the mama's girl). But all in all this family has been everything that you look for in a friendship, and as so many of you know it is so hard after you are married to find those couple friends that both you and your husband become so close with. So even though i know that our friendship with the lichtenberger family is far from over, which is why i titled this post best friends for life, it is still so hard to say goodbye to them. We are totally grateful to God for intersecting our lives for these few years, and for all of the things that they taught us along the way.

Christmas Cookie Baking and snow...

Hands down one of my favorite things to do at Christmas time is to make sugar cookies and decorate them. I love it. Usually we do it over at my mom's house, but this year we couldn't make that happen, so I decided to just do it at my house, and deal with the mess. We had to break it up into two phases over two days-baking one day, and decorating the next-but it was fun as always, and now we have these yummy cookies tempting us every day!

We had our second snow so far this winter this week. It was soooo beautiful. It only really lasted one day, and it ended up to only be like 2 inches, but you take what you can get right??

Here are some pics that i took out the front door.

FINALLY-An Update

I know, I know, I am the worst blogger ever. All my friends in the blogging world have totally written me off as worthless. But if there is anyone still out there reading this, well, here is an update of the last couple of weeks and some pics to go along with them.

First are some pics of a trip we took to Union Station recently with one of my best and dear friends, Jenn and her children to see the sights there. There is the most amazing model train exhibit there that they were all totally enthralled with, and then, of course, the trip was not complete until they themselves got to ride the little train. It was a fun little trip, and I thought I might dress them cute so maybe, just maybe i could capture some good shots, but then i remembered, oh yeah, i am a horrible picture taker, and i have three little children who are going to have no interest whatsoever in taking pictures. Thus, this is what i got out of it.

Look at Kenna's face-is she having a good time or not??


Precious, i know...but horrible lighting.

Again, camryn and mya, not at all interested in the camera, and the crazy woman saying "look over here......say cheese.....over here"

So next set of pics are just some fun pics that i took of the kiddos playing in the leaves over at my friend Julie's house. It was freezing, by the way, so it was a short photo session.

The two older ones are totally precious, but of course, my precious 3 year old just can't quite get the idea of looking at the camera for the full ten minutes that you have to with our camera till the picture actually takes.

ALL RIGHT!! there we go......this one is totally going in the Christmas card!!

And then these last couple pics are at this house that we drove by and had to stop at because we I had heard about it from some friends of ours that these people have, like every blow up Christmas yard thingy that you could possibly have. It is not even arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way, they are just like on top of one another it is so crowded. They even have them all over their roof. I cannot even begin to do it justice in the photos, this is totally one of those things you just have to see to believe. But here are some pics