6 months old!

I can't believe our Ella Grace is 6 months old today. Where does the time go?? She has brought so much joy to our family & we all continue to be completely smitten by her. In the last couple of weeks she has learned to roll over, push herself up to the crawling position, she cut her first tooth, & has thoroughly enjoyed her first few meals of rice cereal. Joshua still gets the biggest smiles, & she's finally decided Caleb is not as scary as she once thought. She is still waking up once at night to eat, but honestly that's the only quiet time I get alone with her & I love it. In celebration of her special day, I decided to put a dress on her. Yes, this is her first time to wear a dress (please no hate mail). I'm still trying to get "in the swing" of having a girl. Maybe by her birthday I will finally succomb to the hair bow. We love you Ella!

rainy day pick-me-up

So we woke up this morning to a dreary rainy day that is supposed to continue through the weekend. But thanks to my sister's most recent post on her blog, I now have somewhere to go for a good laugh. Just to set it up for you, the video she posted originally was intended to capture Joshua receiving his guitar for Christmas. But as you can see, his younger brother was feeling a little left out, and...well...you can watch for yourself here.

Spring Break Recap

One of the perks of having a job in academia is school holidays. Last week WUSOP was on Spring Break so I enjoyed a much needed week off. Tonya's father planned a surprise getaway for Tonya's mother's 60th birthday. We picked up Tonya's sister and brother-in-law at the Atlanta airport Saturday morning and headed North into the Blue Ridge Mountains. We arrived just a few minutes before Tonya's parents, hid the van and surprised Sherree as she was inspecting the cabin upon her arrival. We proceeded to spend the next 4 days lounging in the cabin, playing board games and bingo, shooting pool and enjoying the 40 in 1 arcade machine (Joshua was particularly fascinated by this).

On Monday we ventured into town and found an awesome Mexican restaurant - very unexpected for tiny little Blue Ridge, GA. Gerald and I also managed to sneak away for a round of golf on Tuesday. Gerald is now my official score keeper and handicap calculator.

The Miller's flew back to Texas on Wednesday. Tonya's parents and the Nuzum's checked into the Atlanta Hilton in preparation for a day at the Georgia Aquarium the next day. Let me just say - I would have paid double what I paid for the aquarium. It was incredible; the kids loved it! We will definitely go back.

Upon our return to the hotel from the aquarium, we were greeted by several .... furry creatures. It just so happens that Furry Weekend Atlanta was holding some sort of convention at the Hilton while we were there. So, each time we walked around the hotel, we ran into 2 or 3 or 20 people dressed up as some sort of animal. Some in full costume, others simply wearing a tail and ears with their regular clothes. Kooky.

It was a great trip and a great time with family. I am so thankful to still get a Spring Break!

"God did!"

So it seems the time change is still having it's lingering affects on us. Not only are the boys sleeping late, but I can't seem to roll myself out of bed before 7:00 either, resulting in my quiet time getting pushed aside. So this morning while Joshua was working on his school work & Caleb was sitting in the floor playing with his bristle blocks, I decided to sit down with my Bible and read. Of course Caleb immediately stops what he's doing, climbs into my lap & says, "I want Bible!" to which I replied, "No, go play. Mommy is going to read". Then Caleb, "I want to read Bible!" Ok. I thought, this won't last long anyway. It's nothing like his Bible with all the pictures to look at. So I handed it to him. He started off with some worship by singing the B-I-B-L-E song and holding it over his head. :-) Then he opened it and began moving his finger over the pages like he was reading. I asked him, "What does it say?" To which he very loudly responded, "God did!" Then he closed the book, handed it to me, & went back to his bristle blocks. For some reason this very short commentary by my two year old seemed very profound. "God did". That's a pretty good summary of God's word if you think about it. "God did" How would our lives change if we made it a point to remember what God has done in our lives, especially when we find ourselves in the valleys of life. How often do we find ourselves in the "dips" of life, doubting God and His faithfulness, & forgetting all about what "God did" on the mountain tops. That is exactly what our pastor has been talking about the past three weeks in his series "The Dip". Donnie has been publishing weekly posts to his students to help encourage them. This week he wrote about this & explains it much better than I could...

Pastor Furtick finished the series entitled “The Dip” on Sunday. If you happened to navigate to Elevation Church to watch Part 1, you’ll definitely want to make time for Part 2.

I’m not going to summarize the entire sermon like I did last week. Instead I’m going to focus on a few points that were brought up during our small group meeting Sunday night that I’ve been thinking about. The text for the sermon was 1 Kings 19.

Briefly, Elijah has just experienced what I imagine to be one of the highest spiritual highs documented in the Bible. He was challenged by 450 prophets of Baal and defeated/slaughtered them all. Shortly after this, Jezebel (wife of Ahab, the king) says she’s going to kill Elijah for slaughtering the prophets of Baal. So, Elijah runs…and runs…and runs. 290 miles. What? Elijah and his posse just slaughtered 450 prophets of Baal and now he’s afraid of 1 woman? What? Seems ridiculous, right?

In our small group we stopped here and began listing people in the Bible who did a very similar thing. Where do you even start with the Israelites after the Exodus? Being witnesses to all the plagues in Egypt should be enough to convince anyone of God's power. But then they witnessed the Red Sea being divided, were led by a cloud during the day & fire at night, were fed manna from heaven, & water from a rock. Yet they still doubted as they reached the promise land, and ended up wandering the desert for 40 years because of their unfaithfulness. Peter doubted Jesus as He walked on the water, and later denied knowing Him as the crowds accused him of being a disciple. Thomas refused to believe until he put his hand in Jesus’ side. And the people who had followed Jesus for his entire ministry, saw Him crucified and resurrected, and heard Him deliver the great commission – STILL doubted Him. (Matt 28:17) Again, ridiculous. Right? We read these stories and wonder how in the world these people could doubt God’s power and authority over everything.

Thinking point #1: be it Elijah or Peter or whoever else you can think of in the Bible that we read about experiencing the full glory/mercy/faithfulness of God one minute and freaking out the next – these people didn’t have a Bible. They WERE the Bible. Most of the Bible hadn’t been written yet – especially in the case of Elijah. Sure they were experiencing these events first hand, but they didn’t have pocket NIV for fishermen in those days. We have 24 hour access to the entire Bible in a bazillion formats, languages, translations, colors, and sizes. We have access to the most amazing moves of God across the history of this planet – and we know or have heard the majority of the stories (not to mention the miracles He has done in our own lives or those around us) – and yet we STILL doubt Him.

"But, God’s not big enough to lead me through this struggle/addiction/problem/situation. It can’t be fixed and God could never love me after what I’ve done."

He stopped the freaking Earth from spinning for a day and a half so Joshua could defeat the Amorites. He uses the wind to make mountains explode just to get Elijah’s attention. He raises dozens of people from the dead and delivers thousands upon thousands of people from certain death just because He loves them and they are His chosen people. Jesus heals people just by thinking about them. He doesn’t have to go to them and lay His hands on them (although He does this too) or do an MC Hammer dance (don't think He did this) to heal them. However, He will spit in the dirt, make some mud and rub it on your face so you can see after spending the first 38 years of your life blind.

I think God is big enough to handle our problems. In fact, He allows us to struggle so we will trust Him rather than ourselves. But He will ALWAYS lead us out of the dip, if we let Him.

Thinking point #2: We read the accounts of these people and think it’s foolish for people to doubt or act the way they do after experiencing God firsthand. What if someone were documenting your life in the same way these people’s lives are documented in the Bible. A truly objective documentation of the highs and lows of your life and how you’ve responded to each without all the drama and excuses. Would we read about you praising God during the highs and remembering His faithfulness during the lows…or would we read about you running 290 miles away or continuing to doubt after everything God has done for you?

Makover lesson #2

How to moisturize

Attention Moms:

All you Moms better be on guard. It seems as if there has been some insider information that has been leaked to all the 2 year olds in the area as to how to get into Mommy's make up drawer. Rumor has it that Caleb's buddy, Jake, is the ringleader.



Unfortunately, I didn't realize it had been in his mouth until I attempted to apply my eyeshadow later. The "glisten" I got from Caleb's spit wasn't exactly what I was going for.

Snow Day!!!

The first question always on Caleb's mind: "Can I put this in my mouth?"

Joshua doesn't go anywhere without his light saber these days.

We actually had enough snow to build a snowman this time!

Joshua and buddy Andrew. Whatever is a boy to do when he needs a nose for his snowman?? A blue light saber, of course! You should have seen it from the back - not a pretty picture.