Foundation

As of yesterday, Thursday, the foundation of our new home has been laid.

Wow. What a crazy thought.

As you read this, pray for our family. Pray for our home. Not just the walls and design...but for what will take place inside. Pray that our family will be sensitive to the moving of the Holy Spirit with who will set foot in our home. That it will be a place of comfort, safety and refuge to our family and anyone who comes into it. That the foundation of our family will remain firm in the Lord. That we will shine BRIGHTLY for the Lord and His light will eminate out of our home and our lives.

I can't even tell you how excited I am when I think about all the possibilities of who we can touch for the Lord while we are there. To have SPACE to have people over for dinner....or to spend the night...or several nights! (We had to have all of our final dinner guests in October prior to Daylight Savings since we only have room to eat outside!) That we will be able to open our home to people we haven't even met yet for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It brings incredible joy to my heart knowing that we will be able to use our home for God's glory and His purposes.

I'm praying that we will always keep that in perspective as we go about our daily lives.

Time's Up

After one hour of bliss...I heard "it." You know, the sound that threatens to destroy all good that is going on in a house with small children. A cry from the room of sleeping children. My thoughts ran quickly to "What?! Only an hour! Geesh. Now everyone is going to be grumpy. I shouldn't have tried having them all sleep together. Stupid! How will Josiah make it until bedtime with such a short nap? There goes my break, etc. etc. etc." I bolted from the couch kicking off slippers as I ran so that I wouldn't make any excess noise as I tried to salvage what was left of the precious naptime by removing the crying culprit. Who was it? Josiah. I reached over the railing and grabbed him as fast as I could scanning the faces of my girls as I dashed out of the room to see if they had noticed. Brooklyn was rolling over, eyes still closed. McKenna looked me right in the eye and nodded as if to say, " I know Mommy, I'll go back to sleep." I got in the living room and laid back on the couch and lo and behold, Josiah laid his head on me and went back to sleep. Wow. In fact, he ended up sleeping on me for another 45 minutes. I couldn't exactly sleep as he switched positions about every 4 minutes, but I had to smile at the sweetness of my sleeping son on my chest. Brooklyn stayed asleep for another hour and McKenna slept for another hour and a half.

Naptime was still a success.

And there was much rejoicing.

Mommy Bliss

Now, these pictures don't do them justice, but I just had to document what was going on.






Ok, at this very moment, all 3 of my children are asleep....in the SAME room!!! This is a first. Of course, I had to "help" Josiah fall asleep in the living room so as not to wake up the girls when I laid him down in their room, but still..its a start.

Maybe one day in the near future I can actually have my living room back and use it when my kids aren't in it. Wouldn't that be nice?!

I'm weaning Josiah this month so that John and I can do our next trip without him. He can be quite a handful and our next trip is so quick it would be too much to try and take care of him, too. He's doing great. Turns out he loves to eat so he seems fine with the transition.

Well, I'm going to get back to my "quiet" time and tackle the mound of laundry that needs to be folded. Ahhh....

Perspective

Sometimes God grips your heart in ways you never imagined.

I recently became aware of a precious family in Colorado who had to take their 7 month old son off of life support on Friday, Jan 12. If you need to get a HUGE dose of perspective, please visit his site. (It is on the links bar to the right, Baby Noah.) It wll rip your heart. It will cause more tears than I can describe. And it will show you a family who lives with open hands...allowing God to put in and take out. Throughout this entire journey of their son Noah's life, they have given all praise and glory to our Father.

Today is his memorial service at 1:00 pm. Be praying for this family. God is using them in INCREDIBLE ways.

The word is out

So, everyone officially knows now. I can breathe a sigh of relief and we were able to tell McKenna about our big news.

McKenna is so smart that if we had mentioned the Colorado scoop to her she would've told anyone who would listen. You should've seen her face when John told her there would be stairs going up to her bedroom. She squealed with delight and said, "Mommy! Did you know in Colorado there are stairs to my bedroom?" So excited.

We have gotten such encouragement and support from our friends and family. People at church have come up to us with such wonderful hugs and support. Comments like, "This is perfect for you." "We will miss you, but know this is right for you. " "Good thing we have 6 months to process you leaving" And I've been shocked to discover that just about everyone has a connection in Colorado! They used to live there, went to college there, and seriously, 7 out of 10 people have an aunt that lives there.

Of course, we've also incurred such grief from everyone about the Denver weather. Blizzards, feet of snow and now an avalanche?! Geesh. I don't think Denver has seen this much action in such a short period of time...ever. (Well, who am I to know? I'm used to Storm Watch Alert everytime it sprinkles here.)

John and I will be going back the first weekend in February to have our appointment at the Design Center. That's where we pick everything out....at least the $15,000 worth of stuff that came with it in our sale price. You'd be shocked how quickly that will go!

So that's the latest.....