My walk...

Everyone now and again (or more like once a year), I have the opportunity to share what God is doing in my life or what God has done in my life with our youth students. I seem to take this more seriously than I do with sharing my story with adults because I know these students are in a huge transition and I want my story to make an impact on them. I also think about the fact that one day my children will be in the youth and they will have someone pouring out there heart to them. I need to let God give me the words to say and just pray the Holy Spirit will help my words glorify God.

Anyway, when sharing my story I realized I really wish my children could hear it and learn from it so I thought it was better for me to type it out rather than trying to remember it 10 years from now.

So here is just a little something on how God has impacted my life....

I have been a Christian for 20 years. I grew up in a Christian household, loving God was easy at this point. My parents were great examples of Christ and it seemed like I had life all laid out for me. No matter how you were raised or how long you have been a Christian, things get tough and at times we will all fail God and fail with our unbelief.

I started middle school really excited to branch out and meet new people. I kind felt like I needed to have lots of friends and didn't really care who I was friends with. I found a group of girls that I seemed to click well with and it felt good to have someone to say hi to in the hall and to eat lunch with. I think I was so afraid of being alone in this "new world" that my standards were nonexistent. I had a good group of friends in my church youth group, but we all went to different schools so we didn't have that support systems in our schools.

I continued my friendship with these girls until we reached high school. It was then that I felt the split between us. We really were so different. They weren't Christians and my relationship with God wasn't going anywhere because I wasn't being challenged by anyone. At the time I didn't even understand how a group of friends could really impact me. If I could go back I would try to find a good core group of Christian friends that lifted me up and challenged me. I was just so young in my faith to realize God is big enough to help us with the little things in life like the friends we choose. I felt like asking God to give me Godly friends was too minor for Him.......it's not!

So at this point I am a freshman in high school finding my place. I was now searching for more friends, but still unaware that I should be looking for Christian friends. I kinda just jumped around. I had a lot of "friends" but not a lot of close friends. It was hard, but it only got worse.

When I was in college I had a "friend- low". I had my husband (friend at the time), but I was missing out on girlfriends. It was hard, but it also got me to my knees asking God to bring me some godly friends and some true friendships. This was the first point in my life where I called on God to help me with my friendships. I finally realized God wants to handle the little things in our lives just as much as the big things.

It wasn't quick, but God came through. Aaron and I got married and God surrounded us with some great neighbors who also love God. He brought some women in my life that really helped me through those first couple years of marriage that aren't always so easy. God has given me a mentor who is become a true friend. I have several (more than I can name) women from my church that I can confide in and call blessings. Several mom's that are in the same boat I am, have helped me through motherly issues and visa versa. God has gone beyond my expectations. I asked for one, maybe two, close Christians friends and he gave me a couple handfuls.

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7

All I had to do was ask God. All that time He must of been waiting for it and when I did He probably said "took you long enough" ha! If I only would have known. That is why I am telling you. You can ask God for anything, big AND little. He is big enough for it ALL, so give it to Him.

I am not sure how my life would be different if I would have relied on God more in high school, but I will tell you now, He is the first one I run to for all things. No reason to look back, I am in such a great place now.

And for my friends who are reading this (you know who you are) thank you for being who God made you, you are all blessings in my life and I am so thankful for you.

Oh and I should mention, after giving my story I had all the students eat fortune cookies with this scripture inside:

Don’t be deceived, bad company corrupts good character.
1 Corinthians 15:33

I hope that the cookies will bring them back to this message and remind them to pray for God to bring them some people that will impact their lives.

So Taylynn, Preston, Alayna and Chandler, we have already been praying for the friends God has brought and will bring into your lives. I pray that you all have some great Christian friends that will help hold you accountable in your walk with Christ. I pray that you will be that friend to others as well. But for those times in your lives when you feel alone, your mommy is always here :)

Snow

This winter has been crazy and yet wonderful. We have hardly had any snow and I have loved it.
We did get a bit the other day so I got all the kids dress and ready to go out and play at like 8 in the morning, It was about 30 minutes of preparation and about 10 minutes of fun in the snow. Worth it? Yes!!!!!

This was Alayna's first time "playing" in the show and she loved it even though her shoes kept falling off :(

Of course we had some hot chocolate when they came inside...how else could I get them to come inside?????

Revamped living room

We have fixed up our living room and I can now say its they way I have always wanted it to look. I really love it.
I went from green and plum to green, cream and a vintage blue. Many things are "homemade" and vintage and it just really makes this room feel so homie.

They love the new couch and we can all fit on it, it's so big!

Chandler is five months

Chandler turned five months TODAY!!!!! This month has been a big month for him, he is getting so strong. He is very close to sitting on his own, it won't be long now!

He now sleeps in his own bed at night, we're not sleeping through the night yet, but we have high hopes for this next month.

Chandler had his first bite of cereal on Valentine's Day, he enjoyed it, but he still prefers his milk.

Chandler sleeps during the day on me. It seems I can't put him down during the day unless I have to. He likes to cry unless he is getting full attention, so he is pretty much on my hip all day. He is our last so I am ok with this, just soaking in all the sweet baby moments I can.

As I type this he is content laying on the floor, praise God!!! He is also, at this very moment, sucking his toes. I hear he takes after his daddy on this one :)

Chandler is 19 pounds and wears size 6-12 month clothes.

He is still the happiest baby I have ever seen and he has such an adorable laugh. And every time someone talks to him he smiles soooo big.

These baby days are so precious to me and they will be missed. He is growing faster than I want him too.

Happy Birthday Aaron

Yesterday we celebrated Aaron's 29th birthday.
I made a fruit salad and crumb cake for breakfast, then we met Aaron at his work for lunch and for dinner we went to Texas Roadhouse. It's easy to celebrate his birthday with food. He said he didn't want any gifts, so we had to eat yummy food!
Taylynn and Preston also made him a cake rather than a card, Preston's was blue and Taylynn's was white. They were pretty yummy!

We also celebrated last friday by going to the Melting Pot. It was half Valentines and half birthday dinner.

It was romantic and wonderful, we missed the kids but we know keeping our marriage top priority is best for them.

Happy Birthday to the sweetest man I know!!! I love you!

Pictures

I found something on Pintrest that I just had to recreate! All you need is a backless frame, some wire, nails, mini clothes pins and pictures.

I got this frame for a quarter at an antique shop that was closing....SCORE!!!! I painted it white because it was gold. It took like five coats because it kept turning pink....can anyone tell me why? This isn't the first time I have turned a frame pink when it was meant to be white.

Anyway I had some tiny nails so I nailed them in the back and wrapped the wire around them to make a tight line across the frame.

I stained my clothes pins, to give it a more vintage feel.

For the pictures I use Picasa and made a 4x6 collage with two pictures so when I printed they were smaller and I just cut the pictures out. I made the pictures all different sizes. Does this make since??

I was really happy with the result, soon I'll be posting new pictures of the living room and kitchen. A lot of work has been going on!

If you have any Pintrest creations you can enter them on Christiana's Pintrest Challenge, but do it quick, it end tomorrow! Go here to find out more.

Valentine Party and Valentine Popcorn

Since Taylynn's school party was on Monday and we were still traveling back from Louisiana she missed the Valentine party, but her teacher had a special time picked out for Taylynn to have her own Valentine party with her classmates.

Taylynn and I made some yummy popcorn for her neighbor friends and classmates. It was super easy and something I found on pintrest. All you do is pop the popcorn, make sure all the kernels are removed. Pour melted chocolate over the popcorn and stir. I used Wilton's chocolate disks rather than coloring my own chocolate. Before the chocolate begins to cool spread over wax paper and separate as much as you can and let it cool. Once it is cool you can mix up the batches if you are making more than one color. Then enjoy! It is so yummy! We used ours for Valentine treats and added a little label. The lighter popcorn is pink, a very light pink.

If you have any pintrest creations you should enter them HERE for a chance to win a gift card! Or if not at least go look at Christina's blog and all the cuteness.

So on Friday was Taylynn's Valentine party. We made cookies the night before to take to her friends. It was really hard for me to resist not taking decorations, special drinks (with those cute red and white striped straws) and Valentine games for the kids to play, but I didn't. I held back!
I did dress everyone up for Taylynn's special day.