Surprise

Do you like surprises?
I think you're either in the love 'em or hate 'em category.
I'd say I'm on the, not a fan of, would rather not have them, hate 'em side of surprises.

Except, last night,
I got a fun surprise and really liked it!!

Melissa told me Thursday morning she was taking me out to dinner for my birthday. I didn't think anything about it. I was looking forward to my night off. We got to the restaurant and the hostess asked if it was a party of 2? I say yes and Melissa said no, we already have a table, we'll just go look around for our party.

What?

I was happily surprised to see my sister, Andrea, Kelly and mom where having dinner with us too.

It was such a great evening ... a mom's night out, lots of laughs and snorts, strangers singing happy birthday to me and cute presents.

Thanks for making turning 32 a lot of fun!
and
I hope I just got my quota of surprises in for the year. ;o)

Rejoice

What a day of rejoicing! we had yesterday.

We (all) are so proud of Abigail and Michayla and their decision to identify themselves with Christ, to let everyone know that they are believers, to show us the picture of their salvation through baptism, and to say that they want to obey the Lord.



That's worth rejoicing! And so, Sunday was a day of celebrating these two beautiful children of God on the day of their baptism.

Here's a few highlights:

• The Hart family got in late Saturday night, the cousins were so thrilled to be together that they woke up at 4:30am and didn't fall back to sleep.
• The day was absolutely beautiful, a sunny winter day.
• The girls loved that their cousins got to church with them.
• Cami and Abigail were constantly hugging each other.
• My family came over for lunch, cake and presents. We enjoyed our time together as a family, knowing that we were celebrating a very special day in the girls life.
• Many, many, many gumballs were eaten.
• Dress up, playing outside, riding the 4wheeler and I'm sure jumping on the blow up mattress were a few of the things the cousins did together.

Then, it was time for the baptism. I can't express what that moment was like. I was overjoyed. Just writing about it brings tears to my eyes.

When my girls were born, my prayer for them was that they would come to know the Lord at a young age, love and serve him and bring him glory and honor. I know Abigail loves the Lord, wants to please him in all that she does and I am thrilled to see her relationship with him. Because as a mother, I know that she is going to need more than I can give her to get through this life, she needs Jesus ... he loves her more than I do, he can protect her better than I can, he will give her more wisdom than I could and he will guide her through life with purpose and grace. Knowing she has that hope, power and peace through believing in Jesus as her personal savior, comforts and fills this moms heart with joy.

And now, I see her growing in faith, listening to his word and wanting to be obedient to his commands ... this make her family rejoice!

3 John vs 4
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Here's a few pictures from our wonderful weekend.


This morning these 2 had the sweetest conversation about baptism. I think it wont be long and we'll be headed to OR for this little girls baptism.

Thank you to all those who came to share in the joyous baptism of our daughter!

This Girl

melts my heart!

Busy Stay At Home Mom

I only had time today to do a few LO's. There's always tomorrow to do all the other things I should have been doing today, right?

(Here's one of the templates I used)

1200 Freebies

Have you heard of artscow?

This is the printing company that had a deal this summer, three canvas 8x10's for $7.99 and that included the shipping.

It was the first time I used them and I love the prints I got done. It took awhile to get my order but I was very pleased with the print quality.

Any who, right now, artscow is giving new members 1200 free print credits, 600 4x6's and 600 5x7's for free. (That sure would be great for those of us who quit printing off pictures once we went digital.) Plus, you also get three (3) 8x8 photo books (20 pages) for free too!

I'm working on creating my 8x8 photo books right now. I'm doing a year of LO's for each book. Good thing I don't scrap a lot, 20 pages is about what I do for a year of photos. I create all my LO's on 12x12 pages, but they go into the 8x8 book perfectly. After I drag them over to the page, I just have to zoom out a couple times and they fit perfectly.

So, here's the referral link if you too would like to get in on this great deal.

Referral Link : http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=703767

If you go through the referral link, I will also get some freebies added to my account, so thank you!

Happy Printing!

Laugh Out Loud

Snapshot

Here's a little snapshot of our week.

The girls (Michayla and Abigail) went to their Baptism class.

Ash and I started working on her new preschool workbook.

I was called, again, (this is the 4th phone call from the nurse in 2 years) from the school and told Abigail had a slight fever and was complaining of an ear ache. After some tylenol the kid was back up and running around. I was questioning the doctor appointment I made. When we got to the appointment Dr Ally asked how long it had been hurting and I'm thinking ... umm, maybe 30 minutes. She asked if she had a cough, runny nose, sore throat ... umm, no. But, then she looked in her ears and she did have an ear infection in both. This silly mom, not wishing her daughter to be sick, was a little relieved that she hadn't prematurely ran her daughter to the doctor for nothing. Although, I would do anything for the comfort of my girls.

We had a sick day at home in our pajamas, building cushion forts and eating the delicious chocolate chip oatmeal cookies we made.

Every night, and I mean every night, someone has been playing guitar hero.

Our family has been praying for the people of Haiti.

I've been talking to this friend a lot.

We helped Michayla celebrate her 9th Birthday!

I hit Old Navy's clearance sale, on accident. I was running in for 2 coupon organizers, when I realized it was the first day of their take an additional 50% off the clearance price. Wahoo! Thanks Sis for shopping with me. I don't think I'll ever forget it. For all of you who may not know my sister ... she hates shopping, especially shopping with a person who loves to shop and can spend hours in a store doing just that.

What did you do last week?

Digi Scrap

I love it when I get do some digi scrappin'.
Now I need to start working on the pictures from our DL trip last Spring. I've been looking for a cute kit to use and now, I am having a hard time picking between this one, or this one or even this one.
I better hurry up and decide, my goal is get them done before the one year mark rolls around.

I've got a couple other goals too.
I still have to get all my posts off my typepad account. I'm working on my first blurb book, which I've been working on forever, and just need to proof read it one more time and print it so I can start working on the second book.
I also need to finish up Abigail's room makeover. The next thing on that list is to make a decorative pillow for her bed. I really want her to sew it, so ... we need to have a little sewing lesson soon, maybe today.
Plus, I already have a gift idea for Christmas presents next year and want to be sure to work on them throughout the year.
This year I also want to make picture books for the boys (Cody, Luke and Ryan) and girls (Abigail and Ash) filled with photos from all the many play dates they've had together. I think they'd enjoy looking back at when they were little and started playing together up until now.

Wow, I'm glad I wrote it all. Can't wait to see everything done.

What are you working on?

This One Goes Out To ...

the one I love

Have I really not blogged at all this year?

Happy 2010!
We're so happy it's January around here.
I'm happy to have my husband back and Abigail is happy to be back in school.
It's nice getting back into our normal daily routine.

We have a lot to look forward to this month
and a lot to celebrate.
I'm excited to blog about all that's coming up.

Now that I've taken a little break from blog land, I feel rejuvenated and am going to return to my regular blogging.

***********

I guess you can tell what we recently got.
Guitar Hero.
All of us now think we're rock stars.
And we are.
My best song, The One I Love by REM

Do you guitar hero?

*************

And, if you'd like to see a picture of the girls, go here.

Happy January!