A boy....

  And His Dog.

  And His Dirt.

  And His Mommy.

San Angelo Rodeo 2013

The San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo is a long standing tradition in West Texas that you just can't miss out on!  Chandler was old enough this year to REALLY enjoy it.  Cooper.....Cooper liked the pickles a lot.  We are so enjoying making these memories with our little men!

Waiting Like Hannah

I am incredibly blessed to be a part of a Bible Study with some neat women on Tuesdays.  We are studying 12 women in the Bible.  A few weeks ago, we studied Hannah.  Hannah was barren and was not blessed with a child until she finally turned her heart to God and prayed honestly and with her whole heart to Him for a child.  She had to wait to receive the Lord's blessing.  For years, He was preparing her and waiting for her to come back to Him.

Hannah's lesson so spoke to my heart.  Not in regards to being barren (since we are so blessed to be pregnant with baby number three!).  But, in PATIENCE.   It's easy to say, "Oh yeah, I trust in God to provide when the time is right," or "He will show us the when and the how when He is ready."  But, as I have said in a previous post before, making my heart fully understand what my head knows is not always the easiest thing to do.  It's easy to forget the amazing amount of trust and faith we are suppose to have in Him.  It requires effort to live fully trusting of His plan for us and to live with this indestructible, amazing faith in Him.  

We are trying really hard to move mack to Mertzon, the little town where we started our family and where we would like to raise our kids.  We love the people of Big Lake but we want the boys to be closer to my family and Mertzon is half way for all of us.  And, we want them to go to a small school and Mertzon is really, really small.  Plus, like I said, that is where we started our family.  We feel such a connection to the town, the people there, our church, it's just where we feel like we belong.  It's what we think we are suppose to do.  But the Lord has had other plans for our family!  One event after another has led us to have to sell our land (remember that 25 acres we were so excited to buy for our family?!) due to some development that will soon happen close to it.  So now we are back to square one.  No land to build on.  And, it has been difficult to find a good home to buy in Mertzon. Everything is WAY out of our price range or needs too much work. I am getting very anxious that the longer we wait, the harder it will be to find land or a house because of the oil boom moving that direction.  Maybe something will come available tomorrow.  Who knows?  Oh wait....He does.  And He is trying to teach me through this season of my life.  He is trying to make me grow and stretch in Him.  That lesson on Hannah opened my eyes and showed me this.  He isn't going to provide until we fully turn to Him and trust that He will provide when it is suppose to happen.  Maybe next week.  Maybe 5 years from now.  He is teaching me right now and I can't allow my desires to cloud my trust and faith in Him.  I think I know what is best for our family and I certainly have the desire in my heart to do one thing over another.  But, ultimately, I am not in control and I have. to. be. patient.

So, my prayer has changed.  It use to be, "PLEASE Lord give us a home in Mertzon.  Please give us some land to buy to build on."  It should be more like, "Lord, guide us.  Show us where we are suppose to be.  Wherever that is, please water us with your love and patience so that we may grow to be more like your Son.  Teach me to be more like Hannah and give myself completely to You.  And to trust you through the season of life and through what you have planned for us.  You will provide for us always. Amen.  Amen Amen Amen."

I Slipped Up

I have been trying really hard here lately to stay focused on gratitude, counting my blessings, giving thanks for them, and praising God for all that He has done and continues to do in our lives.  It's hard to train your brain to think positively as much as it possibly can.  It stretches your brain!  And your heart!  Negative thoughts, feelings of pity, selfishness, thoughts of judgement....it's hard to make a conscious effort to push those out of your mind, especially when you are going through a time of trial.  And tonight, I slipped up (figuratively) as I was stepping into the shower.  I caught myself whining, "Ohhh...I wiiiiish I had a bathtub to soak in right nooooow."  See, we "only" have a shower in our master (emphasized because it's one of two) bathroom.  And I have for many months longed for a tub to soak in at night (our other bathroom has a tub but is too close to the boys' rooms and too loud).  I usually just remind myself, "In our someday house, you'll have a bathtub."  But tonight I whined about it.  And "something" knocked me upside my head and told me, "Did you just hear yourself?!"  I quickly thought about the hot, clean, fresh water I had running over me.  I thought about the fact that this is my SECOND shower for the day.  Why two?  Because, I have been really sick in this pregnancy and showers make me feel better.  My SECOND shower.  While there are people on our precious planet that haven't been clean in months or will never take a bath.  Or a shower.  With soap.  Or hot water.  They are grateful for water TO DRINK.  And you know what?  Their souls matter just as much to our Lord as my soul does.  My second shower...to help ease my pregnancy sickness symptoms.  The pregnancy I am so BLESSED with as I have friends struggling.  The pregnancy that requires the (expensive) prenatal care I am so GRATEFUL to have access to, that millions of women around the world do not have access to.  My mind continued to race with these thoughts and reminders of my selfishness, my lack of gratitude.  I thought about the friend of a friend of mine who recently died in Africa because she was doing what the Lord called her to do: mission work.  She died in a highly inadequate hospital (compared to our standards of care) that didn't have the medicine she needed to help her fight malaria.  She was only 34.  I thought about her as my eyes filled with tears and I just tried to focus on the blessing that IS my running water, that IS my pregnancy, that IS my comfortable life in Big Lake, Tx.    

**As I was falling asleep last night, thinking about what I had written, I realized that it probably implies that I don't regularly struggle with maintaining good, healthy thoughts and I wanted to add this today.  I have dozens of slip ups a day.  I am human and I am so far from perfect.  This particular slip up last night, though, just hit me harder than usual.  It weighed more heavily on my heart for some reason.  And I wanted to share.

Deputy Frosty

What a sweet, relaxing day this has been!  I don't know if it's because the city is quieter with 4+ inches of snow resulting in much less travel?  I don't know why this happened, but Cooper woke up at 6:30 this morning and played happily in his crib for about 10 minutes and then just fell back to sleep!  (This type of thing NEVER happens!)  Both boys slept until after 8.  It was so quiet and peaceful in our little house!

We slowly rolled out of bed and got to moving.  It was so incredibly nice to get some extra sleep this morning!  We made a big breakfast that Daddy even got to come home and enjoy.  Then, we went and played in this beautiful snow we have been blessed with.  It snowed last year and Chandler understood what it was, but he was not nearly as excited about it then as he was today.  He had an awesome time!  Even Cooper enjoyed it.  Well.  He ate it.  But, I am sure he was enjoying it because he kept eating it.  He only struggled when he insisted, a few times, on crawling through the snow, which was just too deep for the baby to make it through.  He would get stuck and get very upset.  Anyways!  Check out our fun and Deputy Frosty, assembled by master craftsman TJ and his apprentice Chandler.

Guitie wanted to sit in their laps, out of the snow

Cooper, you got a little something on your mouth.

Helping daddy with the snowman

Stuck

TJ actually got tools out of his truck
to work on the snowman

The finished product!
Pecan shell eyes, cheese stick nose and a
peanut butter cracker badge.

Happy Birthday Bub

We celebrated Cooper's Birthday this past Saturday.  Its was a barnyard theme and we had some very special friends come celebrate with us!  Cooper had a great time!  

Birthday morning cupcakes (and some cheerios)

Cooper does this super cute....thing....where he shows
his "muscles" when you tell him to.  

Reluctant help from big brother

Cooper did well opening the first few presents....

....then we lost him....

....then Daddy got his attention for the last few.

We were getting ready to head home and
I caught this little moment between
my sweet boys.  

They are going to have so much fun in the coming years!

Hope your birthday was fantastic, Bubba!

Can you believe this little baby boy....

....will be ONE tomorrow?!!

I'm about to wrap my little Cooper's birthday present for tomorrow morning.  Our birthday tradition includes cupcakes for breakfast and opening a present.  I thought long and hard about what to get him because the reality is that we have 12-18 month old toys everywhere!  But, I settled for a cute, little car that has a convenient handle on it that makes it the perfect push-vroom-bang-into-walls-vehicle.  Yes, he will be getting a few other things from us.  This is just tomorrow morning's present.

I've been thinking about gifts a lot here lately, actually.  Birthday gifts for Cooper and TJ, Christmas gifts for everyone.  "Gifts" of a different kind.  I have been thinking about the gift of salvation.  The most important gift TJ and I will give our children is the gift of a home and surroundings where salvation is accessible, encouraged, praised and supported.   

"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace." Acts 20:24

Kind of an odd insert into a birthday post about my son's first birthday but this stuff, however sad, has really been weighing on me. I had a friend who committed suicide years ago and to this day, I wonder if I could have had a larger impact in his life than I did.  I was young in my faith and not quite brave enough to tell him about the love of Jesus, our Savior.  I don't know if I could have played a bigger role in his life or not.  But how selfish of me to not allow my light to shine and to try.  I could have been a light for him, while he made his way through a dark place.  He has been on my heart a lot here lately, for some reason.  And I just pray that I have far more courage each and every day than I had back then.  I pray that if you're reading this and don't know the love of God, that you ask someone who does.  There is no greater love than the love of our God.  No greater grace than His.  It is the best gift you will ever receive.  The gift of salvation.  The gift of Heaven.

Happy Birthday, sweet Cooper.  The gift I want for you just isn't wrapable!  And I praise God for your precious life!  What a blessing you are to us!  Be brave, always!  We love you!

Fall 2012

Here are some sweet pictures of the boys from this Fall....

I have decided that we probably won't have too many good
group pictures.  

This is the closest we came to both looking at the camera.

Being silly!

My dinosaurs!!

RRRoar!!!!

Where are you headed, triceratops?

Trick or Treating at the office

Happy Halloween!  I can't believe Thanksgiving, the Wild Game Supper, Cooper's first birthday, TJ's 32nd birthday and Christmas will all be here in less than two months!!