orphans and widows

I've had a heavy heart lately. The Lord has really been working in my life lately and Satan is doing his best to thwart His work in my life. Seriously we must not forget that Satan desires nothing less than to make us ineffective in Jesus' world. I find he always uses things very close to home. He brings up things in my marriage or distracts me with my kids. And lately I have felt the Lord's pull to reach out to others more but I find that even in that I have had selfish motives.But Christ is stregthening me with His patience in dealing with me and His truth to combat Satan's lies. I've been reading in James lately and the last verse in chp. 1 has been on my mind. It's the verse that says to visit orphans and widows. I've been trying to think of pratical and realistic ideas of how to actually do that verse. "But be doers of the word"... I've been considering visiting at the nursing home once a month. I know there must be plenty of people there who rarely get visitors and I could take my kids occasionally. They love to see little people. When I took Lucy around Christmas time to pass out cards, everyone made a huge fuss over her and I just thought about how heart breaking it would be to never see a precious child. I seriously take for granted the fact that most of my day is filled with little people. Plus I really love to visit with older woman, I used to have two ladies in highschool I would go and visit occasionally and I loved it! I have also been thinking about needy children in our area, but I don't know what my role in that is going to be yet but I definately want to get involved. That may be something for the future, maybe being a foster parent or adopting but I know there must be something I can do right now. Any ideas?

Lucy and Jack Update

Lucy and Jack's birthdays are right around the corner. I can't believe they are going to be two and three years old, that's crazy!! Here's an update on both,

Lucy: She has mad communication skills and uses big words like interesting or ridiculous like she's 30, which I am pretty sure she thinks she is. She's still very independant, which helps me out most of the time. But she has FOB (fear of boredom) syndrom like her father. So most of the day she follows me around asking me to read her books, or let her watch TV, or get her a craft to do. She has trouble playing on her own, but she's been doing better and lately has been pretending to be Penny from the Rescuers. It's such a kid thing to do, so cute! She loves to play outside. It seems to be the only place she's safe from boredom. She is really sweet sometimes and likes to take care of her baby brothers. She's the only 2 1/2 year old I know that can change a diaper all on her own (except for her aunt Hede when she was that age). Whenever anyone in the house is sick she will stop what she's doing every few minutes to check on them. Sometimes she will say the most random things that will make me laugh so hard. She's crazy and loves to be surrounded by people. She's also very clever and persuasive. Now that I read that back to myself I realize that this is a description of her father if he was almost 3 year old, I think the only thing she didn't get from him is that she's a girly girl. I love you little girl!

Jack: He's a little behind on his verbalization, but here's the words he can say mama, daddy, sis, bubba, mine, ball, bye, stuck, duck, no, I did it, poppi, boompa, dog, Dane, monkmonk (monkey), wee, ouch. He's said a lot of other words but those are the ones he says regularly. He also has a few words that belong just to him that he uses at his own discrection nano, locka, bucka, buck and I am sure there's more I can't remember. Still he's very good at communicating without words. Most of the time he makes sure I know what he's wanting through gestures and nodding his head yes or no. He's my snuggler and most of the time is very sweet and considerate of others. And he can be very sensitive. But he likes to wrestle and play rough, he can't wait for his bubba to get big enough to rough house.He's very determined so he has very good motor skills because he simply won't give up. He's also very stubborn and can throw a fit that you would not believe! I haven't started potty training him yet (I've been a little busy can you believe it) but he has been telling me when he goes to the bathroom so I think he's about ready. Even though he doesn't speak very good he understands everything you say and for the most part takes direction pretty good. He is very good at entertaining himself, which is a huge blessing for me. He can find something to play with anywhere, outside, inside, in the kitchen, in the bathroom it doesn't really matter. He is very creative.Sometimes he gets really goofy and just lets loose of all his inhibitions. I love it when that happens. He's kinda like being a policeman most of the time it's not that much work but every so often a situation arises that your not sure you can handle. I love you Jackie! ( I said before he was born I would never call him that now that's all I call him)

play this game with me.

Two truths and a lie:

I love Taylor Swift
I've only kissed one man.
I used to swim competitively.

Pick out my lie then post your own truths and lie on you blog!

"vanity of vanities all is vanity"

So I've been running the last 2 weeks. And I am pretty proud. I don't usually get back into the swing of things this soon after having a baby. The thing that's bugging me is I haven't lost any of the baby weight other than the 20 lbs that came off initially. I know you must think that after losing 20 lbs I must not have that much left to loose, but I gained 46 lbs so I still have 26 more lbs to loose. I feel like it wasn't this hard the other 2 times, but I do have a very bad memory. I know he's only 2 months but I still weigh exactly what I did two weeks ago before I started running. It would help if I had one pair of normal (not maternity) pants that fit. Despite the fact that I currently have 5 different sizes in my closet I own almost no clothes that fit my current body. Now then, maybe by verbalizing my frustration I can move on so thanks for listening.

new pics

Just a few pics from recent days:

All my babies together:

Me and my babies, I love them!

"For those whom He foreknew he also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn amoung many brethern.." Romans 8:29. Let me first say I am not here to debate what this means. We can all agree that there is a group of people who Christ "predestined to become conformed to the image of His son", and I just want to thank Him for His predestination at work in my life. I'll start with our move back home from memphis to Clinton. When we first found out I was pregnant with our daughter Lucy it became very apparent we wouldn't be financially able to stay where we were, because I felt very strongly I should be at home with my child. Furthermore I just couldn't see raising my baby in the city ranking #2 in the nation for crime. So we decided to move back home. At the time I was just following my gut and I thought this move was about money and crime, but now I see the my gut feeling was really the Holy Spirit leading our family where He wanted us. This was not a time in my life that I was really seeking the Lord, but He lovingly gave me the answer I wasn' t even looking for. Once we were here we tried a few different churches and had pretty well decided we wanted to make the long drive to Conway each week to attend the more hip churches there, but God just wouldn't give us peace about it. And we felt led to return to the church we had both grown up at, even though it wasn't our first choice. Soon we found ourselves surrounded by a new group of friends and felt we were in true fellowship with other brothers and sisters. At one point the Holy Spirit broke my heart over my own hypocrisy and challenged me to be honest with myself. At that point I really began to grow and seek Him. And more recently there has been a bit of an unpleasant situation with our church, but the Lord had gone before it and placed people in our lives to help us continue to grow through it. I guess what I am trying to say is that looking back on the last few years I see just how many situations and people God has placed around me to set me up for success in Him. Now that's predestination in action. All glory goes to Him!!

Things are looking up.

Today I am feeling really positive. I feel a lot more accomplished than I did last week. As you can tell by the last blog I was pretty frazzled last week, but we had a great weekend and I feel like I actually got to rest. My inlaws were here and so that helped. My mother in law just wanted to hold Calvin alot so I got to spend some extra time snuggling with Jack which felt really good, since I feel like he's gotten the least amount of attention lately. He isn't really a needy guy, although he does love to snuggle, and I have missed that. Then on Saturday after they left I just was in one of those cleaning moods and cleaned the whole house which made for a much more pleasant sunday afternoon. I got to focus totally on getting a nap and didn't worry with trying to squeeze in time to clean. Most of the time on Sunday afternoons I feel like a highschooler or college student who has put off writing that big paper until the last minute and won't be turning in their best work on monday morning. So on Monday morning the house was still pretty clean which makes it a billion times easier to keep it clean throughout the week. I was so caught up I even let Bryan's granny take a break from doing the laundry and did it myself. Then on Monday evening me and Bryan met friends at the park and went running. I've been running on my tredmill but it was really nice to run outside. To top it off last night Calvin slept for 8 hours, that's the longest he's ever gone. There's nothing that can put a mom in a better mood faster than a baby sleeping through the night! Although I don't have any dillusions that he's there yet, it was just a ray of hope that shone ever so brightly on my day today! So things are looking up! Thank you Lord You heard my prayer and answered it!