I am so excited!!!

My mom is on a plane right now headed to Cincinnati, OH. She will be getting on another plane later tonight and it will bring her to South Bend, IN!!! The children and I will be going to pick her up around 9:00 tonight!! I am so excited. Mom and I have a ton of plans for this next week and a half. First plan....go to as many Garage Sales as humanly possible!!! We will be starting out tomorrow morning at 7:00 my time, but 4:00 her time. (She says that she is totally up to this!) I hope so!! Let the good times roll!!!

I needed the encouragement

I entered a bunch of bloggy give aways and the Lord knew that I needed some encouragement this blessed stomach flu week. I WON a Radio Theater program from Focus on the Family from Elizabeth!!! I am so excited!! Thank you, Elizabeth for this great gift!!!

I got mail!!

Today I received a package from Jennifer.  She sent me these awesome items to thank me for the little help that I gave her with her blog!  I never expected anything in return, just making her happy was thanks enough for me.  BUT....since Jennifer wanted to bless me anyway, I will GLADLY take her gifts of thanks.  Thank you very much for thinking about me Jennifer!!  You are SO sweet!!!  ANYTIME you need my help, I am here for you!!

There are many things that I love in this world.  Two of which are

1. Being needed/Helping others

2. Getting presents in the mail!!

A great GOD story!!

I have nothing new to say, so I thought I would give you a link to a great God story!!! Click here to read it!! It is awesome!!

Have a wonderful day with your Savior.

Thank you Maxwell Family!!

First of all, thank you SO much for coming over tonight and spending some of your last precious hours here in America with us!!!! We are really going to miss you guys!!

Secondly, thank you so much for the wonderful NEW toy that you gave to ME!!! I am going to have SO much fun making videos to share with ALL my friends!!!

Thirdly, thank you for the "spaghetti" memories! Spilling spaghetti three times within a half an hour is definitely a record! We will surely think of you all the next time we eat that meal! (HAHA)

And last but not least, thank you so much for the encouragement that you were to me. I really had a very BLESSED night!

The little things

You know, the little things just make me SO happy. Here are some "little things" that have happened already this morning.

• The fire in the wood burning stove was already burning when I got up this morning. It was nice and warm for me to sit and spend time with Jesus.
• I was introduced to an absolutely great blog. It REALLY had me laughing this morning. My day was started out right with lots of laughter. Thank you to Gail for giving me the link. Click here, if you too need a laugh. You have to read the post from Dec. 12!!
• My mom called to let me know that she lost her first five pounds yesterday. WAY TO GO MOM!! It is always great to hear her voice, but really great when she is so excited!!
• The children did school with mostly great attitudes today!! (I really don't consider this a little thing, but I wanted to add it to my list anyways!)
• Joel played very nicely while school was being done.
• Joel has gotten into the stage of pretend playing. Today we shot at monsters. The joy in this was that it was all his idea. He was so serious about this.
• I actually wanted to do the dishes today. Lauren was very excited when she came downstairs and I had already done her chore for her. It is very nice to go above and beyond sometimes!
• I got two great comments from friends. Their comments really encouraged me and made me feel special. Thank you Peggy and Emily!
• Last but not least, SPELL CHECK IS WORKING AGAIN!!!

Wow what a great day and it is only lunch time!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Our morning consisted of eating heart shaped french toast, posing for pictures, and opening cards from Grammie (with an awesome gift card to Wendy's for each of us).

MY NEW DESIGN IS HERE!!!

It took me this long to know what I wanted. Brandy was SO great to work with. She was patient with my lack of direction and her goal was to totally please me!! She was willing to do whatever I asked for. She is very good at what she does. Let me encourage you to look her up, if you are wanting to get your own blog design!!!! You can click on her name at the begining of this post or there is a link on the bottom left hand side of this page.

Here is a little glimpse into the process of this new design.

1. I had to find a digital scrapbooking kit that I liked. (I found mine off of Scrappinggarden.com)
2. I emailed the title of my favorite kit to Brandy.
3. She bought it and downloaded it.
4. I emailed her the pictures of the children.
5. Brandy went to work on it and sent me a proof of the header.
6. I was able to change anything I wanted. (Did I mention how wonderful she is to work with?)
7. Next she got to work on the background.
8. She sent me a proof of the finished product.
9. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.
10. She then put it up on my blog page. (Thank you Brandy!!!)

Once I finally made up my mind, this whole process took less than 24 hours. It might not be that quick for everyone. Brandy just seemed to know what I wanted and we didn't have to change much at all!!!

I WON!!

I entered at least 50 blog giveaways this week. Each blog was offering something that I could use or just really wanted. Here are a few of the things that I signed up for....a $100.00 Amazon card, a digital camera, lots of different gift cards, several total blog design makeovers, a magnetic chore chart for the kiddos, slippers, a prayer basket filled with journals and pens, a DVD and the list goes on. Well, I won one of those awesome prizes!!! This great prize will not clutter this already cluttered house. This prize will be shared with everyone that visits me here. I won one of the blog MAKEOVERS!!! I am SO excited. I prayed if I was going to win a makeover I wanted to win this one from Brandy! Thank you Lord!!
Hey do any of you have ideas of what my new blog should look like? I would love to hear them!! The only thing that I know is that I want black and white pictures of my family in the header.

Bright spots

Last night Joel came home from the service with a tummy ache. It was sad to see him in so much pain. The moaning lasted about an hour and (no kidding) then......the dam broke!!! After he finally got rid of ALL of the contents in his bloated tummy, I realized something. There were a couple of bright spots to this bug.

1. Joel only wanted his MOMMY!! This is huge for me. He has always been a Daddy's boy!!
2. I got to sleep on the floor with him. He held my hand and rubbed my head a few times during the night.
3. He never missed the pail. He has GREAT aim and FORCE!!!
4. He woke up feeling much better. His appetite is not back, but he does graze a little.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE HEALTH OF THE OTHER 16 PEOPLE LIVING IN THIS HOUSE!! We are confident in one thing.....God is in control!!

Happy Birthday to me!

Jeff woke me up this morning and told me that he didn't think I looked a DAY over 35 .........just HOURS over 35!! Isn't he sweet! I am officially 36 years old today! Wow I remember when 20 seemed old!

Last year I came up with the BEST birthday present ever and I asked for it again this year!! I plan on asking for it for the next several years! Here is my brilliant idea, just in case you moms of small children need an idea for your birthday or Christmas gift.
Last year I turned 35. I asked Jeff for 35 hours at home BY MYSELF! I took those 35 hours in 5 hour increments. I ended up with 7 evenings or afternoons all to myself!! I spread those 7 times out over the entire year. During those hours, I spent my time organizing our house. It was so much fun to tear apart a room and be able to put it all back together without ANY interruptions!!! As far as I am concerned, that was like Heaven on earth!! This year I get 36 hours. I am SO looking forward to my time alone!! Everyone in the family wins. The kids get their dad's total attention, Jeff doesn't have to spend a dime for my gift and we all get a CLEAN house!!

I had a great birthday today. I invited some of my children's friends over for the evening. The house was filled with much laughter and excitement.....just as a birthday should be!!

They are better than me

Lauren , Amy, Daniel, Emily and I decorated cookies the other day. They did better than I did!! I enjoy putting frosting on the cookies, but I don't care much for spending all that time decorating them. We had a great time together seeing what new ideas they could come up with.

We went out today to deliver some of those cookies, but we didn't give many away. At the first delivery, the man was not home. I drove right by the second delivery, I figured we could just deliver them on the way home....wrong. Third delivery, yes finally someone to give them to. Fourth delivery was never made either, but we plan on trying again tomorrow.

In the midst of our cookie deliveries, we went shopping to buy gifts, to give away, from Life Action. We had a blast buying things, but while we were shopping the roads got very ICY!! People were sliding off the roads. I do not like driving in the snow, but I hate ice even more. If I had known that it was going to be icy, I would never have left my house!!! On our way home from shopping, I slid through TWO stop signs and many other places. One of those slips was a miracle that we did not crash. I was going (sliding) as slowly as I could down a steep hill, at the bottom was a stop sign. I never did stop, not even close to stopping. I was headed straight for a truck crossing in front of me. I was totally calm though, a huge God thing!! I needed to turn the corner at the stop sign and it was as if God gently guided our van around the corner and we somehow slid up right behind the truck, without touching it!!! I hope my angels are getting their rest in anticipation of our commute to church in the morning! Jeff will be driving, Lauren will be in my seat in the front, and I will be in the back with the children where sight of the road is pretty much impossible. You know...what you can't see, can't hurt you!!

GOD, I WANT TO MOVE SOUTH!! In fact, my whole family wants to move south. Could you please move us SOON?

Christmas party

This Tuesday night was our annual Life Action Ministries Christmas Party. Over the past several years, I had come to not like those "parties". In fact I didn't even go last year. Well this year's party was different. There is absolutely NO DOUBT about it! This year's was the best Christmas party we have ever had!!!! Four things made it so different. I will state them in order of least important to the last one being the most important difference.

1. We were not required or even asked to dress up fancy. (huge for me, but the others are even better)
2. They didn't hire outside entertainment. Talented staff, within this ministry, entertained us marvelously!! We all enjoyed it!
3. Jeff usually has to work through the entire night. I usually find myself sitting without him most of the time. Not this year!! They hired teenagers to do the serving work. We were able to enjoy our party TOGETHER!!!
4. This one is the real kicker. I will never forget it!! As stated in #2 Life Action did not hire entertainment. Which saved them about $3,000.00. (Don't ask me why they have ever paid $3,000.00 for entertainment! I can't remember one year where I think their worth was ever close to that much! I hope they never pay that much again! Okay, sorry I got a little side tracked there.) The ministry decided to split the money that was saved, 60 ways. Each share was $50.00. They offered a share to whom ever wanted it, but we could not use it on ourselves. We have to give it to people in our community. We can spend it how ever we want and on whom ever we want. The only thing that they asked is that we give it on behalf of Life Action Ministries. Life Action does not know the needs of all the people in our community, but since our ministry "family" is so huge we know a lot of people. I will post more this weekend about where we are giving. I AM SO EXCITED...can you tell?