Happy Thoughts Thursday

So you've made it through half the week, but it's still not Friday yet. Sometimes by Thursday you need a little lift to make it to the weekend.

Our solution? Happy Thought Thursday. On Tuesdays you can drop a pet peeve or an irritation. On Thursdays, give us a praise, a thankfulness, or something that just makes you happy. Your contributions on Thursday can be deep and spiritual, such as thankfulness for your salvation, or as shallow as a cup of coffee or a good hair day.  Here are our happy thoughts for this week:

Stephanie: it's build a bear "pay your age" day! 
                     
Kylee: I'm thankful for our family devotions!

Jill:  I get to wear a tiara all next week for VBS! My inner princess is so excited!


 what about you? What makes you happy today?

This one time, before VBS...

We are less than a week away from our Vacation Bible School for this year, so in celebration of that I thought I would share a not so funny then, but oh so funny now story from our prep week a couple of years ago.

Everyone who is involved or has been involved with VBS knows that there is so much that goes into making it happen. It take several weeks preparation but the busiest week of all is the week just before. I believe it was in 2016, we were doing our Superhero theme. Each year my husband and I do the backdrop for our platform. This particular year we chose something with a lot of detail, but I was up for the challenge.

Each year we try and go bigger and better than the year before. I say we had succeeded with this one! 

Aside from all the painting and assembling that we had to do with the backdrop, there was so much more we had to get done. We were going into the church early and were working late hours each night that week. Plus our girls were 2.5, 18 months and we had just had Olivia 2 months before. So the one word I would say to describe how I was feeling was pure exhaustion, I can remember being too tired to even move after we got home each night.

On Thursday that week we had a lot of last minute things to do, we were there until probably 9 or 9:30 that night  and we were loading up to leave. My husband asked me to grab his wallet for him, so I sat it on top of the car to buckle in the babies and then I got in the car. We were running to grab something to eat because we hadn’t gotten dinner yet. We pulled out of the church parking lot, made it to the stop sign and made a turn on to the main road by the church. We heard something. As we were turning I forgot that I had left my husband’s wallet on top of the car. I’m sure you can guess what happened, but as we turned onto the road the wallet fell off the car and the cards inside scattered all over the road. Mind you this road is not well lit. We pulled over and we both got out to look because it also isn’t a very busy road but we were going off of the flashlight off of our phone. The entire time we were looking I was apologizing because it was a stupid mistake and I was terrified that my husband was going to be mad.  

Thankfully we found everything that had fallen out. We did end up with a few very cracked cards but that's better than being lost, right? 

So far this year, I'm tired but not to the point of forgetting things.. so I guess you could say things are off to a good start! 

Testy Tuesdays

It's that time again. Just below are the pet peeves that are driving us crazy this week. Add your own in the comments, or ditto someone else. Commiserate with each other, blow off steam and go on your merry way.

Kylee:  When people don't respect your time.

Stephanie:   the amount of money that Walmart takes from me. 

Jill:  Taking 12 hours to complete a 10 hour trip.

Now it's your turn. What's bugging you?

A Rite of Passage

this weekend was taken up with one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences as Stephanie’s husband was ordained. He and another young man were questioned on doctrine and the church and the Bible for several hours. Sixteen ordained men of God were on the council, and when they had finished their questions and concluded that these young men were ready to preach the Gospel, the council voted to recommend that their sending church ordain them. 

Then the men of the council signed the ordination certificates.

We got some pictures with the pastor of the ordaining church. He and his wife are some of our closest friends.

... and then we went to the park and had some fun.

The guys in the family babysat for a while.

We had a birthday party for this little boy.

Then Sunday night, during the service, the deacons and pastors laid hands on them and prayed for them.

The night was full of tears and happiness and sadness and longing all rolled into one. The sadness is because these two recently ordained men will not be pastoring churches in this country. God has called them to the country of Brazil to preach and they and their families will be leaving very soon. My heart hurts with longing for them already, but since God has called them to a work, I wouldn't want them to be anywhere else but in His will.

We're heading back home this morning. Last night was not the final good-bye before they leave, but its coming soon.

Too soon.

Wedding Pictures

You know it's so incredibly difficult to describe just how quickly life flows by. One moment it's October in Alabama, and you're headed into the hospital for what turns out to be two-days of being induced in order to give birth to a bouncing, 9lb. 7oz baby boy, and the next thing you know, it's June in North Carolina, twenty-one years later.

I'm pretty sure his new mother-in-law feels the same way.

I watched the flower girl ...

... and thought it wasn't all that long ago that her mother was that age.

It seems like yesterday that the groom was playing with his brothers.

Oh wait! Maybe it was yesterday.

We keep adding to the family ...

... which is okay because we needed more girls ...

... although so far the next generation is guys = 1 ...

... and girls = 6.

But with three of our children now married and three to go ...

... who knows what the future holds?

I can hardly wait to find out! 

Happy Thoughts Thursday

So you've made it through half the week, but it's still not Friday yet. Sometimes by Thursday you need a little lift to make it to the weekend.

Our solution? Happy Thought Thursday. On Tuesdays you can drop a pet peeve or an irritation. On Thursdays, give us a praise, a thankfulness, or something that just makes you happy. Your contributions on Thursday can be deep and spiritual, such as thankfulness for your salvation, or as shallow as a cup of coffee or a good hair day.  Here are our happy thoughts for this week:

Stephanie: a bunch of family is coming today!! 
                     

Kylee: To have just celebrated another anniversary with my husband! He's the best!

Jill:  We have a new daughter-in-law!


 what about you? What makes you happy today?

When On Vacation

After the Boyd wedding festivities this past weekend, Matt and I got to take our girls on vacation. This is the first time we have gone as a family away from home other than to visit my family, so we were really excited!

We were blessed to be able to spend time at this beautiful cabin in North Carolina.

As this was the first time away, I've learned some things while being gone.

1. It's always good to keep "special activities" a secret from your kids until you are about to do them to save yourself from a million questions.

2. Always pack for an adventure. You never know when your husband will want to take a spontaneous hike to a waterfall when your wearing sandals and a denim skirt. It was worth it, isn't this a beautiful picture?

3. Always pack extra hair bows, so when you hear "my hair bow broke", you don't go in panic mode that one child does not match the rest. (okay, this is probably just me and my O.C.D, but I know I'm not alone!

4. We have seen A LOT of cows... with that came a lot of questions...

5. Don't spoil yourself with a bigger bed than what you have at home because it's too hard to go back to something smaller.

6. Stella got a small spider on her hand for a brief second until I flicked it off of her because she said it wasn't "shoo-able".

7. Expect someone to get hurt. This time it was me! Talia and I fell on a rock in the creek. The result: a bruised and swollen knee!

8. We are for sure "inside people".

I'm sure I've learned more than that but we've been having to much fun to keep track of everything. We have really been enjoying our family time. Here are a few highlights.