Please lift these families in prayer...

I have two friend who are going through a lot right now and could use any and everyone's prayers.

My dear friends Cheryl & Al had a baby about 2 weeks ago 9 weeks early. The little precious boy, Noah is just over 2 lbs and desperately fighting to live. His brain is severely bleeding and he had a hole in his heart that did close up. Please pray for strength for this couple and for healing for little Noah. Here is a picture of him.

My other friends Tripp, Anna & Ella are struggling as Tripp just has his 4 brain tumor operation and found out that his cancer is now progressing at a faster pace. He is just now starting chemo & radiation. They are in their 30s and have a young daughter and one on the way.

Thank you so much for lifting them up in prayer!!

MOPS UPdate & Exciting Celebrity News!!!

I just got back from the MOPS convention in Orlando which was 5,000 mothers of preschoolers all joined together. That is ALOT of moms in one place!! It was an awesome time!! Sara Groves opened up our session with about 5 of her songs on Friday & ended our session on Saturday. We were also led in worship by Matt Redmon who wrote a ton of popular songs - like "Here I am to Worship" & "Blessed be the Name". We had amazing uplifting messages and fellowship. Some of the speakers at the conference included John Ortberg who had an absolutely amazing message about contentment & slowing down. I know I'm going to definitely get his book - When the game is over, it all goes back in the box! We also heard from Julie Barnhill who is HILARIOUS & full of incredible messages about parenting. We also heard from Laurie Smith, David James, Elisa Morgan, Lysa Terkheurst & many more wonderful speakers.

SOOO...the exciting celebrity news is that we had dinner with Laurie Smith from Trading Spaces on Friday night. We were eating dinner when she happened to walk into our restaurant. Well, one of the other ladies I went with and I decided to go over and invite her to eat with us as she was dining alone. She said she would be delighted and so the 7 of us dined, talked, and laughed together for about 3 hours. I couldn't help but be completely star struck. She was really nice and really talkative. I think God definitely brings people together for a reason because I happened to ask something about her 10 month old that caused her to share that her daughter has been struggling with the same weight issues as Joshua and recently had the same cystic fibrosis test. We did get a picture of her with us with one of the ladies camera's however, I'm waiting for her to email it to me - so stay tuned.

Printer

There are certain situations that happen that really, really tell me that I'm a mom now. One of those happened today when I was trying to print something with my printer and it kept jamming over and over again. I kept fiddling with it and couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was still jamming. So I decided to look inside of it to see if maybe a piece of paper was jammed up in it...when I saw the culprit. It was a toy. Joshua had shoved a toy inside of my printer. It took me a good 30 minutes, a knife, and a pen to get the silly thing out of there. But I couldn't help but laugh and feel joy thinking it was just another part of my mommy initiation.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!

Sunday our town had their annual Ice Cream Festival. It was a GORGEOUS day, low 70s, just perfect for getting out and having fun. We enjoyed playing pots & pans, riding the rides, dancing to music, and, of course, eating Ice Cream!! Joshua even sat for a bit to get his face painted but was a little freaked out at the woman trying to put something on his face.

A New Skill

So far pretty much everything that Joshua knows is something John or I have taught him. So imagine my surprise when John says to me...did you know Joshua knows how to give a 'high five'. I was like, No he doesn't! But sure enough I guess someone else taught him at church or something cause he definitely knows how to give a 'high five'. Sigh...I guess I have to resolve to know that he will be gaining influence from people other than us.

Rain!!

This post is for you to imagine me doing a rain dance as it's finally starting to drizzle a little at my house and I'm hoping for a full downpour for several hours. I've been meaning to take a picture of the lake on our road that has almost completely dried up. It's just sooooooooo dry! So dance, dance, dance!!

My husband...the comedian!

So, I often will throw banana's in the fridge when they are pretty brown so that I can use them in a day or so for banana bread. Well, as I was putting something in the fridge this evening I happened to notice this sign that my dear husband left for me. It got quite a laugh out of me so I thought you might get a chuckle too!

Show & Tell of Kindness

As most of you know, my mom passed away very suddenly 4 months ago. As my mom was not married, I had to take care of packing all her stuff, sorting her clothes, etc. Well, Marlene, a dear sweet lady offered to make me a quilt out of my mom's clothes. This was such a gift in so many ways. It certainly made sorting my mom's clothes much easier and also gave me a great place to put all those clothes that I have seen my mom wear many, many, many times. It really was just so touching. Anyways, this weekend Marlene presented me with the beautiful quilt this weekend. Here is a picture. Also, below, I put a picture of my mom in one of the shirts and a close up to the location of the shirt in the quilt. I am lucky to be blessed by such grace!!

You can see more Show & Tell at There is no place like home's blog.

Weekend Update

John's brother got married this weekend in beautiful Amelia Island. We had the pleasure of going and getting a mini-vacation while we were there. It was so wonderful to get to spend some time with family & friends all while enjoying some sunshine at the beach! Here are a few pics and most importantly a little video of Joshua at the wedding. Joshua was quite the dance machine and danced almost NON-STOP and that is NOT an exaggeration. From the moment he found the dance floor he was out there dancing his little heart out. He also got to stay up late and so he danced, danced, and danced some more. SOOO sweet!

View Video Here!

Pictures of my handsome guy

These are from this weekend...

Wagon Transformation

John bought this wagon/trailer thing for our lawn mower for $10 a few years ago. It has sadly never been spruced up. But we thought it would be fun this fall for throwing some hay in and letting Joshua have rides around the yard...so I thought it would be good to elminate some of the rust and make it a little safer. I think it will look so cute for mini-hay rides!