Joseph's Fifth Birthday

Five years ago, a little miracle named Joseph Scott, came into our lifes on Decmeber 21, 2006 in style. He made me work for him and gave me a few scares at the beginning, but all the hard work has defiantely made these five years worth it.I absoluetly adore this little guy. He brings our family so much joy! I am so thankful God brought him first into our lives, because he is such an amazing older brother and helper.

Joseph at 5:
Loves his little brothers. We have our fair share of arguments and not wanting to share, but overall, he is awesome with Christian and Nathan.
He's really starting to get into ninja, power rangers and good guy/bad guy toys.
Loves to be read to.
Still loves animals. Wants a dog so bad, but I think he understands why this year wouldn't be the best year to get one for Christmas. He still loves catching frogs and lizards.
Loves baseball.
Still loves his popcorn and movies. One of his favorite movies right now is King Fu Panda.
His favorite drinks are milk, coke and sprite.
He has a sweet tooth, so I have to be on super high alert when we have sweets in the house.
Loves lollipops and bubble gum.
Adores all his cousins and would have them over everyday if I would let him!
He really got into swimming this past summer, so we are thinking about getting him lessons this coming summer to teach him how to swim. I am hoping that he will enjoy it and take to it like a champ.
Can remember things very well. Great for when I am going to the store to get a few items.
Favorite breakfast is Shipley's.
Favorite play place is Chick-fil-a.
Loves to go to the Rodeo with Marnie and Poppy.
Still pretty shy and timid. However, yesterday we were walking from the parking lot to go meet Jeff . As we were walking, a man was passing us and Joseph randomly gave him a high five. I was very surprised.







The following pictures are of his birthdays from the past five years.

Celebrating his First Birthday.

#2
#3
#4

#5

Even though we celebrated his birthday a little early, we still like to make the day of his birthday special. This year started out like it has the past two birthdays....making our way to Shipley's for breakfast to get his favorite: blue frosted donut with sprinkles and a sausage and cheese kolache, came home and watched a movie. Then we headed to Jeff's work to have lunch with him and so Joseph could ride the escalators. After we had lunch with Jeff, we drove to go and see another one of his favorite people, Marnie. We went to see, visit and get as much candy as they possibly could in a span of 30 mintues. After they were induced with a candy coma, we headed home for some much needed rest time. The rest of the day, we spent playing together and hanging out. After dinner, we all got a bowl of icecream, stuck a candle in his icecream and sang Happy Birthday.

I don't know about Joseph, but I enjoyed the day of celebration. Love this little guy so much and I am super excited to see what God has in store for him this coming year.

Happy 5th Birthday, Joseph!

Joseph's Fifth Birthday Party

I forgot to load this one, but wanted to make sure it got on here. This makes me smile because everyone was gathered around the table to sing "Happy Birthday," and right before we started, I said, "Hey Joe, smile for me." As he looked up and started to give me a big grin, he saw all his cousins staring at him and the smile was quickly replaced by this face. I guess when you are turning 5, you are just too cool for mom. This weekend we celebrated Joseph's birthday a few days early. His birthday is at one of the most crazy, busy times of year. In the month of December, we have his birthday, our nephews Rex and Jack's birthdays and our anniversary. We usually have his party the weekend before or the day of his birthday (since it's a holiday for everyone), but to make that decision I always call my sister in law to see when she is having parties for her boys. Yes, it's crazy!

I am planning to post the day of his actual birthday about what he is up to nowaday's, but for today, I am posting mostly pictures from his party.

This year, I let him tell me everything he wanted, which is nice so I didn't have to think up anything to do. He wanted it at the house, his cousins over, a whale cake, and hotdogs (which we didn't do since we had a few adults stay and visit, so we ordered Papa John's, which is better than hotdogs).

I love how kids are so impressed with little things. As I was making this, I was thinking how horrible it was turning out, but Joseph thought it was the best thing. I guess as long as a kid can tell what it is, then it's considered a success.

As Joseph was opening gifts, our nephew Rex came up to him and started talking. This little guy and Joseph share the same birthday.

Opening our gift....his first G.I Joe.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

A boys birthday party isn't complete without a Superman,

....sword fighting.

.....and wrestling.

Recent Crafts

If you know me at all, you know that I.Am.Not.A crafty person....at all!!! You would think that I might be since I have a degree in early childhood education, but you should have seen my art projects in college compared to other girls. Mine were hideous! You would also think I would be super cheery and peppy since I was once a pre-k teacher, but I am not. Maybe I totally missed my calling, hmmmm.




All that to say, I have been up to some things lately and thought I would share. I was introduced to pinterest and despise (jk) the person, ahem, Megan S. for showing me the web site. I had been hearing a lot about it, but read on a blog that if you don't have a lot of extra time, don't even go look at the site because you will be hooked. Well, I went, looked, signed up and now I am hooked!! Even though none of the following crafts are from pinterest, that web site has really motivated me to be more crafty.




My first craft is my new stocking hanger. We have never had a good place to put our stockings since we don't have a fire place. We have a pretty large entertainment center that has a great shelf to put one of those stocking hangers on, but Jeff and I aren't too big on those because they slide off the surface too easily and could cause a pretty good injury. So this year, I was determined to find something to do with the boys stockings. We had this wall hanging that was given to me a while back as a gift, but there was a certain picture on there that Jeff hated. It wasn't anything inappropriate, but he said the monkey looked like he was holding "something" ( I'm not going to say), but just take my word for it, Jeff hated it. As I looked at a few days ago, I thought how perfect it would be for three stockings. So I ran to Michael's, got some scrapbook paper and sparkly letters and created this....
If you look really closely, you will see that it's pretty crappy, but it's good enough for this year.

See, this is what I do. I have this awesome idea in my head, stay up late, am tired and rush through a project and then it turns out not near as cute as it was in my head.




My next project is posted for a friend on request. I had seen this idea shared by an old friend and thought that it was not only a cute idea, but a great idea, and I really wanted to do it. So, again, trying to put something together really fast, created this...........

.....Our Thanksgiving Tree for 2011 that looks like it has been through a hurricane, which could have possibly happened seeing that we are near the coast and have been through a hurricane (or maybe it was a tropical storm and it was really only Jeff who was here. I happened to go to Dallas that weekend and slept great!). I put this together in about 20 seconds and it is created with brown, paper lunch sacks. If anything, it does make my laugh every time I look at it because of how hideous it looks. My friend, Amy's, was muchmuchmuchmuch better looking than this one.



But the purpose of this tree, was/is to ask the boys each day until Thanksgiving, something they are thankful for. We put what they say on a "leaf" made from construction paper. I tried really hard not to prompt them to saying certain things. I really wanted it to be something that came to their minds. That is why some are off the wall, like, "pencils."



The other thing that I tried to encourage was them to not repeat something they had said the day before. I was okay with Joseph and Christian both being thankful for Dada, but I didn't want Joseph to say that twice. I plan on putting these in their "memory boxes" because I think it will be fun to look back at the things that they really liked at the time (which has been what they are thankful for...cars, fighter jets, lightning mcqueen and baseball).


(On the tree, I put the scripture, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.")

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Nathan's First Birthday Party

Nathan's first birthday party went pretty smoothly. I tend to get a little stressed when I am the one that is going to be making all the food and when there are going to be a lot of people at our house. It worked out great the weekend that we had it because Jeff was off on Friday, my mom came in Friday afternoon and one of Jeff's cousins had a MDO on Friday morning, so I was able to get a lot done before the party. I was so thankful for my mom and Jeff and all of their hard work, helping with preparations and entertaining the boys.
Two things we did a little differently for Nathan's first birthday party was, (1) we had it as a come and go and (2) we didn't do gifts for him. I read a blog once that mentioned that they had done a come and go party and I thought that it was genius. I really feel that it takes a lot of pressure of the guest feeling like they have to stay the entire time allotted. I mean, I love my kids dearly, but they might not want to spend 3 hours at a party just for him. It also took the pressure of me of having tons of people all at my house at once. Even though most of the crowd was here right around noon, we had a light crowd before and a light crowd after.
Also, not having gifts for Nathan and him not having to sit there and open them was really nice. I always feel like birthday parties can put a lot of pressure on these little guys to be so happy and bubbly for a long period of time and it's not fair to them. He did great through the entire party, but he was asleep during the first hour (just a few people were here though), and when he woke up, all that we had for him to do was to eat his cake. Then when it was time for his second nap, all the guest were gone. So he did great. Here are some snap shots of his special day....

My nephew, Phillip, came in a chicken costume and I couldn't get enough it. Love that kid!

We asked the guest to not bring gifts for Nathan, but instead donate a gift for the Ronald McDonald House Santa Store.

Nathan seemed a little shy about digging into his cake, so I had to help a little bit.

My other nephew, Rex, who is going to be one next month! Can't believe it. It literally seems like yesterday, his mama and I were sitting on the floor at my mother in laws getting excited about delivering these babies!

We rented a small obstacle course from Manvel Moonwalks, who were great!! After the majority of the guest left, and our kids were out of the moonwalk (very important), Jeff, our good friends Mark and Megan, my sister, Joseph, Christian, and myself, did timed runs through the obstacle course. It was awesome, however, the aches, pains, and burnson the elbows were not fun the next day. Mark won by completing the course in 6 seconds.

Decorations for his party (the lightning McQueen cup isn't part of the decorations).

I have seen this done at other parties and have always enjoyed it. (It's Nathan throughout the first year)

Now I am off to plan my other baby's birthday party. That little guy is going to be turning 5! *shedding a tear*

Happy Birthday, Nathan

I know it's going to sound cliche, but this year has absolutely flown by! This morning, I couldn't wait to get little Nathan and thank the Lord for blessing my little boy with a full year of life. I also woke up a little sad, thinking that it can't already be his first birthday.

Here is Nathan, on his first day of life...

And here, celebrating his first year of life!

The following may be considered TMI, but I never blogged about having him. Once we arrived home, we hit the ground running and I didn't even get back into blogging until he was 6 months. Only close friends and relatives have heard the story, but I love to tell about the day I had him because it brings so much GLORY to my Heavenly Father.

I have been extremely blessed with easy pregnancies and semi-easy deliveries (well, except for Joseph who made me work for about 3 hours before he decided to join us.) However, with each pregnancy I have had a hard time keeping my platelet counts up. With Joseph, it was never brought up, with Christian, it was brought to my attention the day we went in to have him and I was told the count was borderline and would result in me possibly not getting an epidural. They decided to do a clot test on me and my blood clotted at a good rate, so they were comfortable with me getting the epidural. I get asked a lot what does the platelet count have to do with an epidural? Well, if your platelets are low, your blood could potentially not clot, causing you to bleed to death. That being the case, they require your platelet counts to be at 90,000 or higher before blindly sticking a needle into your back. The risk with low platelet counts and epidurals is that the anesthesiologist can't see where he is sticking the needle, so if he "nicked" something and caused me to bleed inside, he wouldn't know and I wouldn't either because I can't feel anything.

At my 36 week appointment with Nathan, they took some blood to see where my count was. That weekend was a Fall Festival at church and everyone was asking the usual questions, "how you feeling? "How many more weeks?" That day, I was telling everyone that I talked to, to be in prayer that my numbers be high or that I go early so he is small (my other two were pretty good sized, so I thought if I had to do it on my own, I would prefer that he be small) and I experience little pain. That was a Sunday and also Halloween. So that night we went trick or treating with my little Superman and Spiderman. Monday came and I was a little sore and tired. My weeks turned on Mondays, so everyone Monday I would notice myself getting a little more sore and fatigued. I went about my day feeling pretty good. Went to my mother in laws and hung out with my sister in law, who was also pregnant. We let the older ones run around while we talked about the excitement of our babies. That afternoon I went home and at about 4:30p I got a call from Doctor. M. She informed me that my numbers were low (74,000) and that she was going to put me on a steroid to help boost the numbers so I could get that epidural. I hung up and went straight to FB, put out a message asking for prayers for peace, comfort, and that my numbers increase. I remember just sitting on the couch, wanting to burst into tears and just looking at my older two and hoping that nothing would happen to me.

I pulled my self together, got up and started dinner. As I started cooking I began to feel a little cramp here and there. I didn't think anything of it, but then it was like the Lord kicked me on side of the head and I thought, "Hey, these are pretty frequent and in the same place, maybe I should start timing." As I did, at 5:30p they were already 7-10 minutes apart. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, so I just kept track, told Jeff and he too didn't think much about it. At dinner I looked at Jeff and said, "Maybe we should call your mom and tell her that I am having some cramping and to keep the phone close by." We didn't.

After dinner, I asked Jeff to go and get my medication while I stayed home and gave the older two a bath and ready for bed. As I was getting them ready, the cramping was getting a little more intense, you know, the kind where I had to stop and breath through it. Once the cramps got to this point, I went ahead and packed the boys bags, just in case.

After putting the boys to bed, I went and took a really warm shower hoping that would help. Up until this point, I was thinking I had done too much that day and was just needing to get to bed. Once I was done with the shower, I went and laid down on the couch and was flipping the channels between the World Series game between the Rangers and Giants and the Monday Night Football game between my favorite team, the Colts and the Texans. As I was laying there, I was beginning to believe what I was experiencing were indeed contractions. They were getting more and more intense. After laying on the couch for a while, I was starting to feel exhausted, so I grabbed a big thing of lemonade and told Jeff I was going to go lie down.

When I went to my bed, the contractions started to get more intense, so I got up to walk around. I felt like a dog trying to find "the right place" to poop. I was just going around in circles because every time I laid down it was miserable. I began to start keeping track of the contractions again, because I was becoming more and more convinced this was real labor. Finally, I had Jeff keep track and they were about 3-4 minutes a part. After about two or three of the contractions being that close, I decided to call the on call doctor. It was about 12:30am, I got a hold of the doctor and I told him, "I am having pretty intense contractions about 3-4 minutes a part. " He then asked how long they were lasting, without knowing (because I hadn't been keeping track of that), I said, "I don't know, maybe 30 seconds." He said, "Well, if it's real labor, the contractions will be 5 minutes apart, intense and lasting about a minute." I kindly said, "Sir, I have 2 of the 3." He told me to go back to counting and if they were lasting longer than a minute to go ahead and head to the hospital. I went back to my room and immediately experienced a contraction. When it was done, Jeff told me it lasted a minute. Then the next one came about 3 minutes later, that one lasting a minute and a half. I stood up and said lets go. We called my mother in law, but when we were unable to reach her, we called my brother in law Kyle. Once he got here, we were off. We got the hospital in record time.

On the way there I was telling Jeff to go as fast as he could because I needed to push. We pulled up to valet. I called for a wheel chair and we were on the elevator in no time. At this point I knew I was going to be doing this without an epidural. So far the pain had been bearable. I tried so hard to breath and get through the pain that was happening and not think about how much worse it was going to be. With the other two boys, I had gotten to 5 cm without a lot of pain, so I knew I could do that. So on the elevator, I looked up at Jeff, probably with the saddest eyes and said, "I hope I am at least at a 7." We got off the elevator and went to check in. After all the dumb questions that I don't think they need to ask a women who is in labor, we were wheeled to a room.

Once we got to the room, the super calm nurse was like ,"Okay, get this gown on and go to the restroom because this may be the last time you get to go for a while."I started to head to the restroom and turned right around and told the nurse, "Ma'am, if I sit down on that toilet, I am going to push this kid out." She then told me to come to the bed and she would put the monitors on. As she started to put the monitors on me, she could see that I couldn't relax and said, "Let me check you real quick." All I could see were her eyes and they got huge. She said, "Uh, you are 9 1/2cm and bulging bag, I'll be right back." She ran out of the room and came back with a crew of nurses. When she left, Jeff and I just looked at each other and both breathed a huge sigh of relief and he hugged me and said, "You did it!"

When the entourage of nurses came in, they were asking a thousand questions and having me sign papers between contractions, which, there was NO IN BETWEEN, they were one right after the other. As I was signing, I told a nurse that I was going to get sick. They rushed over a peach colored, kidney-bean shaped bucket and I released a good amount. After the third vomit, my water broke. The nurses were cleaning up the vomit and then I looked at one nurse and said, "My water just broke." I have to laugh when I think about the nurses early in the morning. There they are, at the nurses station enjoying a nice cup of coffee and then I come in. They were going crazy in my room. I come in, about have this baby, vomit all over them and then bam ,my water broke. They were probably thinking, "slow down woman!"

As soon as my water broke, my body took over. I really only remember pushing 3 or 4 times and he was here. I had arrived and checked in at 1:06 am and had Nathan at 1:45 am.

When Nathan arrived I was worried about him being so early (he was 19 days early), but he had the loudest scream of all three. Then I was concerned about him nursing well. I knew from my mom who works on a post-partum floor, that early term babies can be lazy nursers and I knew from my previous babies, that they lose weight before they leave the hospital. He was 5lbs. and 12oz, so I really didn't want him to lose any weight. God was so amazing to us that entire week. Nathan took to nursing like a champ and didn't lose much weight at all. The only thing was that he would fall asleep after nursing about a minute or so. So we had to strip him down to his diaper and constantly rub his ears, feet and back to keep him awake. Then at his two week check up he was a pound past his birth weight, which blew his doctor away. They were just wanting to see him back to his birth weight, but here he was, an entire pound more.

God's grip was felt that entire evening: The peace during the contractions while at home, the safe drive to hospital, the super speedy delivery, no hemorrhaging (which I had really bad with Joseph, I lost a liter of blood, and then a little more than normal with Christian), Nathan coming out screaming and very alert, Nathan's strength and wellness, Nathan eating well and gaining. I have also heard with early term babies, that they tend to get sick more often than full term, but we have been blessed that he has been a fairly healthy little boy.

It always amazes me when God will show you His peace. I know He is always there, but sometimes you feel his presence more when you are going through things that are completely out of your control. During those time, I am reminded of that verse in Exodus, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

I can't believe my baby boy is a ONE YEAR old. We feel so blessed God placed little nay-nay in our care. We treasure him so much!! Thank you God, for this wonderful, precious gift.

*You may be wondering where we came up with the nickname 'nay-nay?' Well, when we brought him home from the hospital, Christian had just turned 21 months and didn't talk much at all. When we told Christian, this is your brother Nathan, he couldn't say it. Then one day, he called him nay-nay and of course, we thought it was the most adorable thing ever. *

Halloween 2011

As much as I look forward to these special days, like trick or treating, I am so glad when they are over. The build up, anticipation, and the chaos the day of can be pretty crazy!
All that to say, we had a great year of pumpkin carving and trick or treating....We hope you did to.

Joseph carved his own pumpkin this year. He did awesome! (or so I thought). His is on the right and Christian's is on the left. C had a little help.

This has nothing to do with trick or treating, but this is the mask that went to Joseph's ninja costume and I thought it was so awesome on Nathan.

The older two boys were both Ninja's, or as Christian says, "Injas." They were so cute going door to door.

And here we are..reality. Nathan was having a pretty rough night. During one of his crying fits, I noticed his bottom two molars coming in, so maybe that was the cause of his melt down.?

The older two did have a great time, I promise.

Our Season of Life

This is a post about our season of life, so it may not be for those we see a lot because you probably know what's going on, but for our family and friends who we don't see often. When I was in college, I would email family about every couple of months to give them updates and from what they told me, they always enjoyed it. They felt like they knew what was going on in my life even though they didn't get to see me.

So here is an update for our family, starting with Jeff: He was currently assigned a new project that is out of Canada. As much as we are very grateful for new projects and a job, a starting project can be pretty demanding. Like having to work from home on the weekends and over-time. I am also loving the fact that if he has to travel for this project, it's going to be to Canada and not overseas or South of the border. I told him, "I might actually travel to Canada with you if you have to go."He has been running with some friends and family a few nights a week so that's been good for him. I feel bad for him because I know he enjoys working out, it's just finding the right time to do it. He gets up pretty early to go to work and he's respectful in the fact that I like having him home by 6, so that eliminates working out before and after work. He sometimes runs during his lunch break, but that can be pretty toasty between the months of May-October. So this has been a good compromise. He is home for dinner, gets to play with the boys, helps with baths and bed time and then gets to go workout and be home by 10.

As for me, I have been pretty busy with the normal, "motherly" chores. I have also been in a Fall Bible Study that is on Wednesday mornings. I love love love love this day of the week. Even though this study has been pretty slow, God has revealed himself to me in a very loving way. I have recently started meeting with two wonderful girls on Monday nights to share stories, talk about our struggles, pray for and encourage one another. How God orchestrated this situation was perfect. When I was asked by Sarah to meet with her and another wonderful women of God, I was going through a rough season. A season where I was feeling abandoned, a season where I felt God was humbling me, which can be pretty miserable, so the timing of the invitation was awesome. I have only gone two times, but I have really enjoyed it and I now look forward to Monday evenings as well as Wednesday mornings.

As for Joseph, well, he is about a month and half from being 5! I honestly can't believe it. He is going to be a ninja for Halloween, so we are looking forward to that. He is really into baseball right now. He asks just about every day if there is baseball on t.v.. We are enjoying the World Series right now since the Texas Rangers are in it.

Christian-boy is about to be three. He is officially potty trained!! I am so relieved. He got the pottying down really fast, but going #2 took a while. We were pushing almost two months of him not telling us when he needed to go. We tried prizes, special drinks, movies and popcorn, candy, nothing was working! I was confident that he knew what he needed to and how to do it, he just wasn't. It came down to where I had to get pretty firm for two days and boom, he's been successful ever since. He too, is going to be a ninja for Halloween.

Nathan is a week away from turning one and I want to go lay on the couch and get in a fetal position and cry. We talk a lot about having a fourth, but we don't know if it's safe for me to continue with another pregnancy, so the thought of my baby ALREADY turning one is very sad for me. I don't think I did a post on him when he turned 10 months or when he turned 11 months, but when he turned 10 months, he wasn't really doing anything different from when he was 9 months.

So to make up for that, Nathan at 11 months: You are in size 3 diapers, you are now crawling and pulling up on everything. Tonight, you pulled to a standing position on the side of the tub. You say:Mama, Dada, ball, doggie, more, m (for milk), and I am almost certain you said "Joe" the other morning. You can dance, kiss, clap and wave on command. You lovelovelovelovelove Joseph....ok, and Christian (a different kind of love ;-) ). You love your milk, although, we think you have had a little virus this past week, so we have taken the milk away and probably won't bring it back until next week. You love balls and the firehouse that is in Joseph's room. You wear 9 month and 12 month clothes, although the other day, I got you into a 3-6 month onesie. You wear size 3 shoe. You take two naps (10a and 2p) and go to bed at 8p. The morning nap is at such a convenient time *saying with a super sarcastic tone*, with running errands, having play dates and church. You are a pretty happy baby, but I don't think people believe me because when our friends see you, it's during your morning nap, which you tend to be grumpy gills.

And to conclude the update on our family, I would like to share that we have recently become members of a new church family.
When Jeff and I got married, we talked a lot about where to attend church. He was raised in a Church of Christ and I was raised saying that I was follower of Jesus, but attended different churches throughout my childhood, some being under the umbrella of Assemblies of God and some being Baptist churches. He had been a part of a church for at least 15+ years. His entire family went there, close friends went there, people that he loved and respected went there. So we thought, for the beginning of our marriage, that was where we needed to be. About 6 months ago, we felt God really pressing on both our hearts for a fresh start. Without airing all of our most intimate conversations here, what it came down too was that we both were in need of something fresh. We needed something fresh for our own spiritual lives, we needed something fresh for our marriage, and something fresh for our children. About a year prior to us making the difficult decision of stepping out there to see where God was going to take us, a vast majority of Jeff's family had departed and went to different churches around the area. That was a very difficult time for the both us. As much as I wanted to be excited for everyone and to see what God was doing in all their lives, I couldn't help but feel alone. When I think back to that time, it was actually a very good thing for Jeff and I. We began to sit down and talk about why we go to church, what we want to get out of church and how we wanted to be Jesus' hands and feet.
We prayed a lot, we sought a Christian counselor from Houston First Baptist, we sought scripture and Christian authors, like Hank Hanegraaff.

I can't speak for Jeff, but for me it really got to a point church was just about Sundays and Wednesdays and from what we have experienced these past 6 months, we have learned that church is beyond Sundays. Being a follower of Christ is living a daily life totally surrendered to Him (which I can/do struggle with). I once heard a preacher say, "that being a Christian isn't just knowing the facts, it's an experience." That was so convicting to me. Here I was learning about God, but I wasn't really going out into our community sharing, loving or reaching out. I think we at times tend to favor and make our decisions on what's familiar and what's normal to us. Even though we tend to favor normalcy, this quote sums it up for me, "I think the point is for us not to let familiarity with something make us think we don't need to give it our all." I really think that was where I was in my walk, not giving it my all.

Being a follower of Christ isn't always the most convenient, comfortable, normal thing to do. I'm in a bible study and this entire semester is on surrendering and getting rid of the old and going on with the new...."weeping forward". As hard as the decision was for us, we knew we had to do it even though it might hurt a lot of feelings. It also came to a point we had to stop trying to please others, but to exam our own spiritual lives, our marriage, and our roles as parents.
After many conversations, Jeff and I decided it was time to step out and visit other churches. We weren't searching for the perfect church, because that doesn't exist, and we weren't following a group of people, but we were looking for a place that we could see ourselves growing, our marriage being challenged and encouraged and a place we could see our kids growing and being taught. We went with an open mind and heart, so if we didn't feel like God was taking us anywhere else, and felt led to go back to where we were, we were going to do just that. One of the things we really wanted to try was going to churches in our community. We really wanted to start reaching out to our neighbors, people we met at parks, chick fil a, etc, and be able to invite people to church. Visiting churches was a much harder task than we thought it would be. We went to churches where people greeted us with hugs, we visited churches where not a single person approached us ,we went to a church that after about 10 minutes in, we were like, "we do not fit in here." It was a long search, but we have recently joined a new church home and we couldn't be happier.

We are at peace with our decision and super excited to see where God is going to take us through this church. We have already seen God work mightily through us since we stepped out in faith. It was very hard to leave a place that was normal, a place that was familiar, a place where everyone knew us, a place that loved our boys, but we have seen God's blessing. It's hard not to think about the feelings that were hurt, but like I said before, it was something we felt God was pressing on our hearts, and we felt like we needed to surrender. Even though getting to that point of surrender was very difficult, it feels so free now to know that we did what we felt led to do.
"God's ways are not always the most practical, popular, or unopposed, but they are the most blessed."