"Eli, Where's your..."

"....your mad face?"

"...your nose?"

"...your eye?"

"...your mouth?"

So excited to watch him learn!! My girls did this much earlier then he is but I have come to realize that boys are just plain DIFFERENT!!! Love him!

One proud mommy,

Baby Dedication

"I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. Now I am giving him to Lord and he will belong to the Lord his whole life." -1 Samuel 1:27-28 NLT

In February we dedicated Rylie and Elijah "Eli" back to the Lord. It was a great day and we will not forget how important this day was for our sweet babies!! We thank God for them EVERYDAY!!! They are truly a blessing from Him! :)

The week prior to the dedication the outfits I had made for them were still not here and so that meant I was in a panic. It even got down to the Friday before the dedication and they still were NOT here yet! rest assured they got here Saturday at 3pm. Yep and wouldn't you know Rylies dress was more of a SHIRT! So out to Target at 8pm to find a way to make it work!! And i did! I found some really cute white capris and some pretty white sandals! It was perfect!! I love how it turned out! Enjoy!

Blessed,

~Love & War~

Wowzers!!! First off, it has been waaaaayy too long since I last updated!! Alot has gone on and so it will probably take me a few days to catch up but I wanted to share the neatest thing that we have gone through this past 2 months!!!!

Kevin and I have completed an 8 week series on Love and War in your marriage....Whoa!!! At first it was information overload. This small group was not exactly small, but it was in a small group setting during discussion time. :) The small group was based off of John and Staci Elderidge's book LOVE & WAR.....great book and even better small group!

During this 8 weeks small group, we discovered many things about one another and our marriage that we didnt know. Thats always fun , right? :) But most importantly we learned that our marriage has an enemy. Super scary for me because marriage is HARD. Thats one of the reasons half of them end in divorce. We DONT want to be a statistic so we are beyond excited about the knowledge we have gained!

I dont want to spoil it for you, so if you are intersted check it out! You wont be sorry I promise!!!

The coolest thing has happened for us though as we journeyed through the past 2 months. We havent really been consistant tithers until this year. We always said "we just dont have it." However this year we want to be different. Our pastor told us to test God. Tithe and see that he will pour out more blessings then you could ever imagine! :) Well, we did. I am utterly AMAZED by His faithfulness! We have had favor with most everyone. We have people and businesses BLESS us with services and meals and gas and the list goes on. Stuff we NEVER asked for!! He has blessed us with new friends and rejuvinated friendships with people who we have just gotten to busy to keep up with. Its so cool how He works! I dont know why I waited so long to do this!

He is soooo faithful! He loves us and wants to BLESS us and now I feel like a living breathing testimony to his love and faithfulness. It is soooo cool to me! :)

Anyway,that is a quick little tid-bit! I hope you have all have had a good start to spring!! I know we have!!!

Blessings,

"Teaching Moment" Love,God

"Faith makes things in life possible not easy."

I kinda stole this from one of my friends FB status' because I feel like this is exactly what I have been dealing with lately. WE(the family) are still battling illness after illness after illness. IT IS CRAZY!

I know everyone, including my pediatrician has been saying its been " ...a bad cold and Flu season. You aren't the only family I promise." But really??? 5 weeks of it in a row! Yea Im struggling with what in the world is going on and why is this happening to my family...how could I not be?? As if being a wife, mother(and all other sub titles this includes), friend, daughter, niece are not hard enough on ONE individual add in on top of that the business of life and ILLNESS!!

So, because I am learning, and God is teaching(love HIM), that my WORDS are supposed to be LIFE -GIVING and not LIFE-TAKING I have to be "careful" of how I talk about whats going on because I tend to be more negative about things that dont go my way. Nobody particularly "likes" being sick. But instead of pulling EVERY negative out of it I am working on praising God that this cold and flu season has actually given me and the kids more "home time". More time with God. More time with each other. Our life schedule isnt taking precedence over our family time. Maybe thats what God has been trying to show us. Maybe there is a method to HIS madness!! Haha! :) Having faith means ANYTHING is possible with HIM, but Jesus said there will be trouble in this life. So I am choosing, in this time of absolute insanity, to choose HIM. Choose to have faith that I can get through this even if its not easy. God is in the hard stuff too and thank goodness He is. This past 5 weeks has shown me some things in ME that I am not proud of...so im choosing faith. Because I CAN do anything through Christ who give me strength. Phil 4:13 even if its not easy!

Lovingly,

Happy {heart} day!!

with love,

Family on the mend???

Ok just a warning this post will be boring and gross.....consider yourselves warned! :)

3 weeks ago this family was happy, healthy and BLESSED!! However some things have changed in the last 3 weeks...

First, we are still INCREDIBLY BLESSED with friends that love us and pray for us daily! We want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! Beyond that though we are not happy or healthy...:(

About 3 weeks ago we all slowly came down with a stomach bug. :( It made its way around the whole family and when it got to the mama it put her in the hospital. We later found out it was something much more serious. Apparently I caught the bug and got food poisoning all in one day! SCORE!! 3 days in the hospital stunk, but 18 bags of fluid and some of them with Potassium since my levels were low, and some nausea meds and I was a new woman!! :)

That was until tummy bug #2 made its rounds and all 3 kids got sick AGAIN!!! Yep, its true. Round two was much worse then round one for the kids. They ended up in the ER with IV's and Iv fluids.....at 3am!

Finally just when we think we are in the clear and home free we wake up in the middle of the night to Mr Eli wheezing like his champion wheezing sister Rylie! The next morning it was confirmed that Mr Eli has RSV. So onto the 2nd bottle of Motrin and the 2nd bottle of Tylenol and the steroids, breathing treatments and steam showers....Fun! (note my sarcasm)

So without going into much more detail I have now completed 18 loads of laundry, gone through 2 bottles of Clorox wipes, 1 can of Lysol and half of a container of bleach so that HOPEFULLY and PRAYERFULLY we can be DONE with all of this mess and enjoy the spring! :)

On a side though, there was a small period of time when we were well. So we had a little photo shoot done with BMullniaxPhotography.com! They really caught Rylies personality well! :) Here is a sneek peek. I will upload the rest later..Enjoy!

Hoping you have been well,

Basically our crazy December

December was a busy month for us...
We traveled to Columbia 3 times and Charlotte, NC 2 times. ALOT of driving! Anyway since Danielle had a doctors appt in Columbia after we went there we decided it was a perfect opportunity to visit one of the parks there in downtown Columbia. It was Finlay Park. So pretty. We played there for a little bit and had lunch(crock pot BBQ Beef-which I cooked the day before..yum!)

Once we got to Charlotte and checked in to our hotel, we decided since I had never eaten at a Cracker Barrel that we should try it. Eeeehhh, I wasn't impressed. But I loved the peg game so much we bought one!

(Christmas with Danielle happened before the park and Cracker barrel,but to be honest I tried to move them and it would work!)

So the week that Danielle left we celebrated Christmas with her. It was kinda bitter sweet. My girl has never spent Christmas morning without me and this was a reminder that she wouldn't be there with us this year. I'm so happy her family in California enjoyed but she was missed at her home!

As in the the post 2 times ago...Elijah has hiding spots all around the house. In December they were:


...in my glad ware cabinet.

and behind the Christmas tree!

More pics to come but I gotta get on to my chore list!

Until next time...

Be Blessed,