What a fun day!!!

Sooo... Elijah has hit the 4 month sleep regression- OH JOY! Last night he was up every hour and a half to two hours wanting to nurse. Needless to say, by the time I got up I was tired... and I did NOT want to go about my day yesterday, but I'm so glad I did!

First it was off to church- which was great! Pastor Chad taught on "core values" and what it  means to do the right thing for the right reason. This included not "flaunting" the things you do, but doing them in secret : i.e. praying, fasting, giving etc.  Good Word!  and the fellowship and worship was great! I just love to worship in the Spirit with my church family- God is amazing!

After church, we headed to the inlaws for lunch- and we watched the first half of "Nim's Island" . I have to say, that I will definately be finishing that movie next week. I was sucked in that is for sure LOL Of course, having to leave right at the major climax didn't help!

After lunch and half a movie it was off to our pastor's son's birthday party! Happy First Birthday Casen Bryce!!!! The kids had  a blast :) Casen loved his Elmo cake- and the older kids went swimming and complained when it was time to go! Kyley got in the truck exclaiming "MOMMY I swam to the stairs all by myself with no body helping me!!!"  She had arm floaties on, but she was so proud!  I'm so proud of my big girl because before our trip to Huntsville a few weeks ago, she wouldn't get off the steps, even with anone holding her and now she's swimming on her own with her floaties!



After the party, it was back to the church for our husband's small group, so I got some good fellowship time in with Angelica :) I love getting quality time to spend with my friends- life is so busy that sometimes it's hard to find time to catch up so I had a blast, and I thank God for that precious time!

As a special treat, we then took Kyley to SNO BIZ!!!! We had a great time of fellowship there as well... it was our family, with Will, Angie, Isaac, Tina, Elizabeth and Brandon (Dyno) and we had a great time!  Best laugh of the day was Derek and William were tasting each others snow cones, then Kyley tasted Dereks, then when William wasn't looking, Kyley reached over and got her a spoon ful of his and tried to hide it from him while she ate it :) TOO CUTE!  Isaac loved his sno biz! I'm sure he'll have many more in the years to come LOL

And as if that wasn't enough of a day :  Back to the church for hispanic service! Yay! This is the second week we've attended, and I'm proud to say that I understood more this week than last, and I have a feeling it can only get better from here! I love the culture, the language and just these people overall, and the best way to find myself understanding the language better is to submurge myself in it in situations like this.  Sometimes I feel like a big goof, but that is just the enemy telling me that this isn't important. But this is... it is a passion of mine to be fluent in spanish and be able to minister to the people of this culture whether it be in our country or a hispanic country- we'll see where God leads me!  And my wonderful husband, who has a hard time with languages is learning! I'm so proud of him, he is picking up on things quick and figuring them out on his own!

After a trip to the grocery store- a trip by Amy and Mikeys and nana and pa's to drop off some milk and we finally made it home after a long day!

God is amazing- my day started off with me being grumpy and not in the mood to do ANYTHING and then He gave me the strength to make it through it all without complaining! I even stayed awake all day with little to no effort to do so which is a feat seeing as how tired I was... Thank you Lord for allowing me to have a great day despite everything that could have got me down!  Gloria a Dios!

What is your but?

Last night at Celebrate Recovery, we talked about worship... what does it mean to worship God?

a few answers we recieved were :

You loving on Jesus and letting Jesus love on you (a personal favorite of mine) , and praising Him...

Is that all it is though? Praising Him?

We should worship God not only through song, but through actions and attitude as well-  I like to think of worship as a lifestyle, not just one thing you do for God.

So while we were talking, we came to the conclusion that true worship would include giving ALL of your life to God.  But we all know how hard that can be!

So my question to you and what we posed to the kids last night, is what is your but?

Lord, I'll give you all of my life but.... (insert something hard to give up here)

For me, my biggest "but" is God I'm giving you all of my life but I can't get past the things in my past that have hurt me or made me doubt who You are in my life...

Emotionally, I've been through a heck of a lot in the past few months-and God has blessed me greatly but I still harbor hard feelings for some of the moments I missed out on. Most importantly I have a hard time understanding why as a mother  I missed one of the most important moments in my life... When my little boy was born I couldn't see him because I was almost blind.  What should have been one of the happiest moments of my life, turned into one of despair for me... I cannot understand why that moment was taken away from me. I developed severe cataracts pretty rapidly at the end of my pregnancy, and because of that I wasn't able to see my little boy and my sweet Kyley again until Elijah was 7 weeks old.

Thing is, I know that God is faithful, I just have a hard time surrendering that doubt and despair in my life to Him...

Lord, help me to be more like You- to know that Your will is perfect and that You will put nothing more on me than I can bear! Lord, help me to surrender my feelings to You and become at peace with the things life brings my way because YOU are always on my side!

What a great end to the day!

After a long night with not much sleep, and a long day of kids kids and more kids... I had a great time at Celebrate Recovery tonight with our teens!  Will taught tonight on the importance of discipleship and in small group we talked about self discipline and even correction from others... it was a great change of pace from the chaoticness of my day LOL and afterwards Derek, the kids and I, and Will, Angie, Isaac, Abigail, Serennah, and Hannah went out for milkshakes!!! Thank you Jesus for letting at least part of my day not being chaotic! YES!

So much for the end in sight...

My poor babies... neither of them slept well last night- so much to the end of a long day :( But today, I am awake with renewed energy and am excited about what God is going to do at Celebrate Recovery tonight!   And amazed at how God allowed me to be there for someone when I typically wouldn't have been able to. Thank you Jesus!

Back from outer space!

Well we ended Cosmic City VBS last night and we all had a great time! We are so blessed at our church to have so many loving members who are willing to donate their precious time to minster to our children! May God bless them for their selfless giving of themselves and their time and may children's lives be changed forever!

God bless

As yourself...

8 Times in the NKJV the Bible tells us to "love your neighbor as yourself."   Jesus even says that it is one of the greatest commandments, second only to loving God with all your heart, mind, and soul. God has really been stirring my heart lately on how to do this- but not in a typical way you'd think, but he's been dealing with me about the "as yourself."  You see, we can love someone without loving ourselves, but God calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  But what does that mean?  I'm not talking about being conceited and the likes, but I mean truely appreciating who you are in Christ, the beautiful creation He made you to be.  We, as humans, are the only creature that was created in His holy image and how thankful should we be for the way God made us, even despite the things we see as "faults."   I've had plenty of opportunity in my life to dislike who I was... but I am so thankful to God for who He has made me in Him! It's time we realize how beautiful and worthy He thinks we are, and start loving others the same! If we could see every individual through God's eyes, we'd have a lot more compassion, a lot more patience, and overall a lot more holy love for one another.

I challenge you to put off the thoughts of your "faults" and realize the truth, that God made you very special just for who you are- and to use you in His kindgom,  Psalm 139 gives us a huge picture at how important God thinks we are- I encourage you to read it! Psalm 139

Allow God to use you to not only see yourself as worthy but others as well, and love them as God loves you!

Day 3

Well we successfully finished day 3 of VBS and everything went great!!!! We have almost doubled our numbers this week already and we still have tonight to go!!! Praise the Lord!

Here's a pic of our awesome youth minister :)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="446" caption="This is Super Star on Staroids!"][/caption]

Blast Off to Cosmic City!

The past 3 days have been an incredible journey for those of us at Harvest Temple- we've blasted off to Cosmic City!!!  VBS started Sunday night and things have been great! My ultimate prayer for this VBS is to see kid's lives changed beyone this week, not just for a few days but for a lifetime they will be closer to God and doing His works!  May God work on the hearts of those who do not know Him, and draw those that do closer to Him!

Last night I had the privilege of taking my 3 yr old neice with me and my kids and she had a blast! She sang the theme song all the way home! She's only been in church a handful of times and it was so great to see her enjoying herself![gallery]