I love...

I love this time of year! I love seeing the commercials on t.v. of the troops wishing their family a Merry Christmas, hate they can't be with them but love that they still say Christmas and not "Happy Holidays". I love how Wal-Mart's parking lot is absolutly crazy busy b/c everyone is rushing around to get their presents. I love wearing a scarf and mittens. I love cookies and hot chocolate with friends. I love Christmas carols. I love family and the anticipation of knowing what I bought them and can't wait for them to open them. I love when people say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. I love my church family. I love my puppies that cuddle even more b/c it's cold outside. I love my husband more every day b/c the man he is!

Wow!!

Well, I will update you all on everything that has happened in the past week.
All our our family got in safely last Wednesday night for Thanksgiving! Praise the Lord that my Dad didn't end up in the hospital after his chemo like he normally does.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I truly believe that I could have fed 20 more people and still had left overs! We had so much stinkin' food!
We got up and went shopping on Black Friday! That was great fun!
The pastor and his wife, Brandon, and I had to drive to Springfield to attend a pastoral Christmas dinner on Monday.
We drive down Monday, check into the hotel, get dressed and drive down to the church the dinner is to be at and not a soul in sight!!! We were a week early! The dinner is next Monday!!! Isn't that hilarious!!!
So we go to Cheddar's and laugh about having 2 days off.
Then we go to my parents apt to visit for a little while and I landed in the Emergency Room!!!
I found out I have Kidney Stones...dang they hurt!!!
Thankfully I passed 2 of them today and so hopefully that is all there is. Now I need to go see a urologist some time.
I can't wait to get my Christmas stuff up! I wold normally have it up already but it's been a little crazy the past few days so hopefully this weekend we will have a Christmas filled weekend!!!

God is good!

Praise the Lord! Dad found out today that his stage 4 lymphoma is now in remission!! They are starting the stage 4 Colon cancer treatments now! This is a huge answer to prayer! Thank you all for praying for my family during this rough time! All my family is coming in for Thanksgiving including Brandon's parents from Oklahoma and my grandparents from Indiana! They will be getting in one week from today!!! Then Christmas!!!

My Babies!

I just wanted to post some recent pics of my babies! We found that little coat for Molly at Target for $2.50 a few weeks ago! They are too precious! I never thought these sweet little dogs would bring me such joy every day but they totally do! They are getting along great since their wedding and are the perfect little couple!

Voting!

I consider myself to be very patriotic! I get tears in my eyes when American's win gold in the Olympics and they play the national anthem. I stand with pride when the national anthem plays prior to baseball games. I desire to hug every military personal I see in uniform. But I never feel more patriotic then when I get to vote! I love wearing that little sticker on my shirt that say I voted! Thank God we are in a country that gives us the freedom to chose our leader. Even tho the results may not turn out the way I have voted it is great to see so many people get involved in the voting process.

Halloween Pics

Here is the love of my life and I on Halloween! He was Richard Simmons and I was his #1 fan! It was a blast!

Mission's Conference

I have had a great week! Our key note speaker was Bro. Jennings and he also got to stay at our house and we had a great time getting to know him better! The missionaries we had this week were such a blessing! We had Tarl and Adrianne Reeves, Josh and Lani Joyce, and Rommone and Annette Perez. It was a great time of fellowship and challenging our faith! I love the weather that is going on right now and I totally busted out the pink pea coat tonight!!
Halloween is coming...what is anyone's plans???

Pastor Appreciation Day

We had a really great weekend! We got to take 16 of our students camping and it couldn't have turned out any better!!! It was great! The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time!
Our church family surprised us today with $500 for clergy appreciation day! What a blessing!!

Target Experience

I have got to be the dumbest person around! I made a complete idiot of myself last night at Target. I was checking out the dollar bins near the front of the store and lady had these way cute festive little barrettes in her hand. Our conversation went as follows...
"Oh my those are soooo cute! Are they for your dog?"
"No, they're for my daughter!!"
"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry please forgive me!! I'm such an idiot!"
(Rolling eyes) (Turning to walk away) "ugh!!"

I had to just walk away and find a spot to go laugh! I guess since I'm so caught up with dogs that everyone else is too...even people at Target buying hair accessories.

On the up side...Brandon got me a pink camo sleeping back for our student camping trip this weekend! I'm pretty stoked! And I got this way cute umbrella that is see through and trimmed in pink, and it's the kind that looks like a bell, and it was originally $16.99 but I got it for only $4.49!!!!

Great Weekend!

What a great weekend! It all started with the end of a kinda rough week. The Blazer isn't running right and the mechanic says nothing is wrong with it, the baby I sit for had a rough time getting re-adjusted to the schedule after being on vacation, our next door neighbor's dog passed away so Toby was sad he lost a friend, just a all around crazy week.
The greatness started Friday! The baby did a lot better through out the day and I had an amazing hair day! The kind of hair day you want to go get your driver's license picture taken so you can remember it forever kind of day! I told Brandon I'm having such a good hair day I'm gonna blog about this...he thought I was a little silly but I didn't care.
We got our basement bedroom carpeted and we put the base bored on Friday night. So that made us feel accomplished. Saturday we did some more stuff around the house and rented Baby Momma stinkin' hilarious!!! Laughed so hard!
Sunday I had a friend from high school in the area and so we got to eat lunch and catch up together! It was so nice! Then Sunday night we had a great night at church!
God is so good to us and we are so undeserving.
How was your weekend??

What a great vacation!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we had a great trip! We had a great much needed vacation! We got to spend about 2 days in Springfield and then 3 days in Branson with Brandon's family! We got to shop, enjoy family, hot tub, sleep in, swim, eat... God has blessed us with great family and friends!!
I started putting up my fall decor today!!
Molly got her stitches out and her a Toby are now being able to be outside together and begin a daily schedule! They are stinkin' funny!!

MY MISS MOLLY

This is my Molly!! We have betrothed Toby to this precious sweet little girl! We found her on a web cite for the Human Society Thursday night of last week and called first thing Friday morning! Brandon took Toby and they went to bring his bride home! She just had surgery on Thursday so she has to take it easy and Toby really wants to play but he's too rough right now. We've been wanting another dog for Toby to play with for a while but just haven't found one worthy of his love! She is 28 lbs (12 lbs smaller then Toby) & 2 yrs old. She's so precious and sweet spirited! Let me know what you think of the LOVE of Toby's life!!!

New Bible Study

Tonight was the first night of our ladies Bible Study!! We are doing Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore! If any of you ladies haven't ever done a Beth Moore Bible Study I encourage you to to gather a group of friends and start one...any of them! My favorite so far is Believing God. She has such a gift of expressing herself and spreading the Word for ladies to learn! I feel myself stretching in my faith and learning and relearning things that I forgot, God has blessed her to touch hearts! One thing she said tonight in her lesson was that God chose to use exclamation marks 136 times in the New Testament. She found that great b/c she considered herself a living exclamation mark. I am from here on out stealing that saying! I too consider myself a living exclamation mark!!

My new phone!!

Greetings!! I received my new cell phone today!!! I'm so very excited about it too! It's an LG Vu. The best part of it, I got an amazingly good deal on it! We were due for an upgrade on phones which offers a discount and for some reason in the past sometime they have in their computer that I'm an outstanding costumer that deserves an extra $100 off a cell phone! Not saying I'm not an outstanding customer it's just funny b/c they gave me this discount and not Brandon and we're on the family plan. So I got a touch screen phone that was originally $329 for the amazing price of $30!!!! It is very very fun! And b/c I got such a great deal on it I took the liberty of ordering a polka dot face plate on ebay that should be arriving any day. Just wanted to share my great deal with you all!

Are you stinkin' kidding me!!!

You wanna know what drives me crazy!!! People complain and go on and on about American's being fat but healthy food is way more expensive!
For example...I make pigs in a blanket for lunches occasionally. Fat free Ball Park hot dogs were $4 for a pack. Farmland regular hot dogs were on sale for $1.
That's why I'm 30 lbs over weight... I'm blaming it on finances...that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

Not much!

Greetings! Not too much to blog on lately, all my teens are back in school now and I'm just back to my regular day routine. My Grandma and Aunt was driving through to visit the rest of my family so we got to spend a few hours with them on Monday! I wish we lived closer, I love my grandma dearly!
I watched Sarah Palin's speech and I really like her!!
We're looking to buy a bigger vehicle and it's not going too well right now.
Arby's has their Arby Q's back for only .99...amazing!!!!

Are you serious?!?

I know that everyone out there reading this is not a republican, and I respect that!

Barack Hussein Oboma is a very likable man! Handsome, intelligent, family man, etc. But I was stinkin' annoyed last night watching his speech! As a Christian I'm against the fact that he is pro-choice so that throws him out for my vote immediately!! He talks about all these changes he is going to bring and he might vary well do it, but he was also talking about true patriotism... I feel that I am very patriotic...however, he was standing up there bashing our current president and telling us all what he has done wrong. True patriotism doesn't bash the authority that this country is under. He should respect President Bush and not bash him. Bush has put in his time, there isn't any more he can do so why try to get people against him?!? This country voted Bush in not once but twice, so that means that in the crowd of democrats that are clapping and shouting when Oboma bashes Bush probably voted him in 2 times!!

And I think it's pretty hilarious that we as a country are trying to chase a man named Osoma Bin Laden and on Barack's signs it says Oboma/Biden. Don't those two names combined sound rather similar to anyone but me? Hello!!!!...his middle name is Hussein!

Just some thoughts that were driving me crazy last night! I know I'm up with all the political garb and talk but it's my blog!

Crazy Amazing Weekend!

Now that we're in the ministry it seems that the days of the week that I look forward to even more so now are Sunday's and Wednesday's. Sunday was absolutly great! Over the past 2 months we've been averaging about 210ish on Sunday mornings and yesterday we had 290!! We've been planning the annual end of the summer Block Party for months and at the beginning of the week it called for rain. There wasn't a cloud to be found yesterday! God blessed us with absolutly wonderful weather and a great turn out! There was food, games, face painting, bounce house, adult game show, door prizes, etc. you name it and we had it! Our pastor and his wife's daughter-in-law was due with their first grandchild Sept. 1st, but they received THE call Saturday morning that the baby was on the way so they rushed to Indiana to welcome the baby into the world and we took on more responsibility. Everything turned out better then we thought it would!! Praise the Lord for His merciful weather forecast in spite of the meteorologists!!

God is Stinkin' Amazing!!!

Any body out there ever had a morning that started out the pits! So bad that you wanted to go back to bed and get out to start it all over?! Well my morning started out like that! The flesh side of me wants things to go the way I think they should go (can I get a witness) although I know I need to be patient and wait on the Lord!
So rough morning...great night!!!
I have a 15 year old girl that used to come to church for the pure social aspect of enjoying her friends company. I've been praying for this girl to get saved and take God serious for over a year now. She grew up Catholic and has a Mom that is Muslim, talk about confused! She came to me last week to say that God or something was telling her to come talk to me about salvation, that right there was enough to blow me out of my seat and have to pick myself back up! So we sat down and answered a few questions about it and I told her I would get her a Bible and we would talk again next Wednesday...this is next Wednesday! Praise the Lord! She got saved tonight and I couldn't be any happier! He knows exactly what He is doing and when He is doing it, I have to just get out of the way and let Him have His way!

An Average Monday

Who doesn't love a great deal?!? We went to Hobby Lobby tonight and the ribbon I wanted to make more vases was 2 spools for $1.00!! Needless to say I stocked up for a while!
In other news, Dad has his chemo treatment this Wednesday so please continue to pray for him and Mom.
We had to take Toby to get his yearly shots today. He cried like a baby! I don't know how I will ever take my kids to go get shots when that time comes b/c it killed me to watch Toby have to go through it!!

Honey Bun Anyone?

Good morning! Brandon and I had a great night last night! 90% of our students started back to school today so last night we took them all a Honey Bun with a little note on it for breakfast for their first day back to school. We got to see 36 of our 50ish students within 3 hours! It's amazing the smiles that a small Honey Bun brought forth! We are at such a great place right now with the youth group! God is really blessing!! They are all maturing in the faith and becoming more faithful! It's great to see what can be done when they give their lives to Christ!

Pics of Vases

Here are my vases I blogged about earlier. I thought I would post some pics. It is nice to know I have a creative side! Took me a while to find it but here it is.

My Daddy

Some of you may not know that both of my parents are fighting cancer right now. My mom was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in Feb. In June my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma that has spread to his bone marrow and stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to his liver. They are both undergoing chemotherapy right now. Without getting all depressing about it, just simply please keep them both in your prayers! My dad was admitted into the hospital today after becoming extremely sick last night. His white blood cell count is way, way, way, down which means he can't fight off any infections and is very, very, week. I spoke with him on the phone and his speech was slow and soft, so even tho I can't see his newly bald headed body I could tell that he was very sick. Thankfully we're only 3 hours away from them but I do wish I lived closer at times. I sure don't know what people do without Christ!

What a GREAT GREAT Day!

What an absolute great and amazing weekend day I had! God is sooooo stinkin' good that it takes my breath away! It started early this morning with the Beth Moore simulcast that touched my soul! She truly has a gift from God to teach in a way that will grip your soul and change your life! She really challenged me in my walk with Him! Then tonight we had our girls night with the youth group girls. I started this at the beginning of the summer the first Saturday of every month I do just a girls activity. They have all responded wonderfully to it and really looked forward to them. Tonight we ate, did face masks, paraffin hand wax, and painted each others nails. Talk about a great bonding time! I figured I would have some that wouldn't want to do the girly things and just sit there and make fun of the rest of us but it wasn't like that at all! It was amazing and I'm so happy that God has created a unity between all the girls from various backgrounds and families. Thank God for his overwhelming mercies!!

Great Target Shopping!

Through the week there isn't much to blog about in my every day life of babysitting 4 kids at home. Last night we went to Target to birthday shop for my niece Ashley that will be 4 in August. We perused down the shoe isle not expecting to find much...I felt as if I had died and gone to Heaven! Not 1, not 2, but 3 isles of shoes where marked down somewhere between $3-$8!! I must have spent forever there trying on every pair that caught my eye! I called everyone I could think of that would appreciate my shopping trip to see if they wanted me to buy them a pair too. All in all I walked away with 3 pairs of shoes for me and 1 pair for my sister so I didn't go over bored! I have the best husband in the world, he stayed by my side and helped me find the sizes I needed and didn't tell me no once!

So excited I almost cried!

Well, it happened for the first time last night in the history of me being a youth pastors wife... 1 of my girls asked for boy advice! To some this may not seem like a big deal, but it is! Just the fact that she valued my opinion enough to ask sincerely was enough to make me cry! Who knows if she'll follow through with what I told her but now next time it will be easier for her to ask me advice b/c she already has about the big stuff!

Flower Vases

I've never been one to keep up with a hobby especially a creative one. Recently I've got into designing flower vases. I use a blank glass vase get ribbons and buttons that color coordinate and glue them in a decorative design around the vase. I started making one as a gift idea and it turned out great! I'll get some pictures and post them. I've thought about making them to sell but don't know where I would get the opportunity to sell them at. Just wanted to share what is making me happy right now! Thanks for reading...what are your hobbies?

No more MOHAWK!

Brandon decided to mention in a sarcastic manor that the boys going to camp should all get mohawks not thinking that the 12 and 13 year old boys would really do it, they show up to church with crazy mohaks the Sunday night before we leave for camp. After 2 back to back weeks of camp it got shaved off today! For those of you who don't have the honor of knowing my husband, he is crazy about his hair and what it looks like. So it's just funny to see him with a shaved head and no hair! Thats all!

Sr. High Camp

God is so good! After a great week of jr. high camp we had another fantastic week but with our sr. high! It's amazing that we've been here for over a year and this is our 2nd camp with our students! It is a lot more fun when you know the students! It's great to get away for a week to focus on Christ and our relationship with Him.

Jr. High Camp

God is amazing! We just got back on Friday from a week long with our jr. high group! We took 8 students and one of our girls got saved while there! We had an absolutely wonderful time! It blows my mind that God gives us a job where we can go to camp every summer and get paid for it! There is something about leaving cell phones, mp3's, and t.v.'s at home and driving 3 hours away with no parents that brings out the best in students.