A Warm House

Thanks to our friends Stephanie and Doug Stanley, our house is now warm! They gave us a housewarming party and it was so wonderful. God has blessed us beyond measure and one area of blessing is most definitely our friends and family. Thank you to all that warmed our house for us. It was fun and it will be a sweet memory for us many years from now.
I did not get many pictures as I was visiting with everyone. Here are a few:

Me, Heather and Jesika...Best Friends Forever!!

The cute Hoyts:)

Sweet TomblinsNeal and Cindy, our awesome new neighbors!Doug and David...a little too close for David's comfort!Stephanie and me. Stephanie you are amazing and I am so thankful you put this day together for us!Chris and David...we can't wait to be neighbors to the Praters!!Beautiful Jennifer and Jessica

What's in your Garden?

This is Rageddy Anne. She and Raggedy Andy live in our hanging basket.

Typical pointy leaf bush. Ouch.

I think this is a Petunia.

I think this is too.

My new favorite flower, it reminds me of buttered popcorn. It has been so good to me...totally easy to care for.

My Precious Treasure

So in trying to attain more of God, I am reading "Biblical Exegesis" by John Piper. It is good. It is not always easy, but it is aiding me in my understanding of scripture. I always find it interesting when people who rarely read their bible try to give their own "account" of what a verse, passage, or book truly means. I want to know the Truth. I will get more of It by knowing what the Word really says. The preface of "Biblical Exegesis" is interesting to me.

"John Wesley once said, 'I have thought I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God, just hovering over the great gulf, till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into a unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing---the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. O give me that Book at any price, give me the Book of God!'
This Book has been costly. Martyrs wrote it and others have suffered intensely for their faithfulness to it. The book has been preserved and passed down through painstaking efforts. It has been translated into the vernacular of thousands of peoples, sometimes at the costs of life, not to mention time, energy and money.
This Book is a 'treasure chest of holy joy'. It is from this Book that we learn what the apostles taught concerning the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God. It's from this Book that we learn about the supremacy of God in all things. It is from this Book that we learn about what our sovereign and good Father requires of us, His dependent children...
Because the Bible alone is the inerrant, infallible authority for what we are to believe about God and how He wants us to live, it is no surprise that we bring a lot of baggage to the text. By nature, we don't like the thought of absolute authority residing in anyone outside of ourselves. What if God commands me to do something I don't want to do? Or, what if He portrays Himself in a way that differs from the way I think He should be? This would lead to a tremendous pressure to import our own meanings into the text rather than content ourselves with the author's intended meaning wherever it leads us.
Thus, we need three things to be careful interpreters of the Word of God. First, we must admit that we need help and that we will die without it. Left to ourselves, and our own unaided human reason, we-are-hopeless. We need revelation from above. Our eternal life hangs on this! Secondly, we need faith in the sovereign goodness of the Author. This faith not only frees us to go where the Bible leads us, but it impels us to go where the Bible leads us. Thirdly, we need to learn how to read with the kind of care that corresponds to the preciousness of the Book."

I know that was long, but for me it was really revealing. The Word of God is in my home, sits in many places in this house. Sometimes unopened for days. A precious treasure here for me to find. I pray I treat it as such. My precious Treasure, may I find more of You!

Did someone say "Spray Park"?

So, this morning I was taking the kids for a walk and our final destination was going to be our neighborhood park. Well, there is the funnest little spray park very close to this park. The kids took one look at all of the kids playing and screaming with laughter and they were done. So we hiked back to our house, loaded up a little cooler, put on our sunscreen and swimsuits and headed to the water! Our kids had so much fun. That, my friends, is our newest hang~out. If you can't find us on a sunny day, we will be there! Enjoy the pictures:) I will also add some pictures from Emma's Birthday Blessing at school. At chapel, their sweet director prays a special prayer for the children on their birthday. Emma will turn four June 5th, so the last chapel included all the summer birthdays. It is always so sweet and Emma loved it.

Sweet fun.

So excited I think she is gonna burst!

Emma and Jacob's new friend.

The look on his face is just funny to me!

Jacob and Emma going to school

Emma's Birthday Blessing

My week went by ever-so-slowly. David was out of town from Monday until Thursday night. If you know us, you know that this was very difficult for both of us. We are that sappy married couple that can't get enough of each other. We love our time together and do not love our time apart. So, Monday he went with me to drop Emma off at school and then Jacob and I took him to the airport. Jacob cried. I am not sure if he understood what was going on or if he was just feeding off of my emotions. Airport departures are so sad for me!

Skip over to Thursday. David tried to catch an earlier flight home. Could not. My sister-in-law and David's brother have twin boys just one month younger than Jacob. They were in a little program with their Mother's Day Out and it was hilarious! Little two-year-olds on a stage are always funny. When you know them, they seem 100 times funnier! It was the cutest thing. David sent me a text saying that I would have to add another 20 minutes to his arrival time. That put us at 9:30. Ugh, our kids crash by 8:30. And when I say "crash" I mean they can go totally ballistic and act like the bad kids you see screaming in store or restaurant.They like their schedule. So, we had dinner and visited with my Granny and then picked David up at around 10:00.( Yes, later than they told him he would be landing in Dallas.) We had made a Welcome Home sign and Emma was so eager to hold it up for him. Jacob was out like a light.
Yesterday we went riding bikes with my cousin Lance, his wife Angela, and their daughter Avery. We have a bike trailer/stroller and David lugged all the kids in that thing! It was funny. Our kids love the trailer, but it was Avery's first time. She cried all the way to the park. Poor kid. I wish I had a picture of all of them in the trailer!
Today is Sunday and we will have our sweet homegroup tonight. They are such a blessing and we just love our group. We will be bringing the salad and bread tonight, so wish me luck with preparing the salad. Cooking/making food for large groups of people kinda stresses me out.
I am sorry this is boring! I will post some pictures that Emma took a couple weeks ago. She loves the other side of the camera as well!!

Happy Sunday!


Below are this Friday's Roses. A very pretty orange color!

Emma's Photo#1

Emma's Photo#2

Emma's Photo #3

Emma's Photo #4

Our Welcome Home sign for David:)

Fabulous Weekend

Fabulous Weekend!! Let me just say that we have had the best weekend ever and it is only Saturday! Friday we introduced the kids to the magical experience of a carnival. Emma has been saying, "when the carnival comes back to town...I AM GOING!" over and over! They LOVED it, and surprisingly rode many rides. I rode a ferris wheel for the first time. I was scared. I am thankful that the power did not go out while we were at the top...which it did several times after we got off!! Holy Cow, I would have grabbed my kids and my husband and shimmied down to safety somehow. I have little faith in the workers that were at this particular carnival and I know I could have made it down before anyone ever knew the power was out. Seriously, I don't think some of the workers even knew...

Also, you will find a picture of one of my Friday roses! They are a beautiful color and I can't wait for them to bloom!

Lastly, tonight at church we had a guest speaker, Ben Stuart. David really admires this guy and I proceeded to embarrass my husband and tell Ben. It was a great message and if anyone is reading this and thinking about not going to church because Matt is not there...you will soooo miss out if you don't go!

May tomorrow be as great as Friday and today!!

Here we are on the spinning dinosaur ride.

Pure Joy!

Sweet Emma with her sweet Daddy on the Ferris Wheel.

(why did I capitalize ferris wheel?)

(ok, this is funny. I did a spell check because I can't stand misspelled words. It said "ferris" was wrong because it need to be capitalized! Did you know this?!?)

Incredible scenery! Can you smell the funnel cakes?Mmmmmm!

Jacob looks just like David!

Emma and Jacob about to encounter their first carnival!!

My beautiful roses!

Of Benjamin he said,
“The beloved of the Lord dwells in safety.The High God [1] surrounds him all day long,and dwells between his shoulders.”

Deuteronomy 33:12

The NIV puts it this way:

"About Benjamin he said: "Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in Him, for He shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between His shoulders."