i will rise

Just returned home from IL late last night. As I sat on the bed weary from my travels, Scott shared with me a song that reminded him of my mom. He mentioned wondering what it must have been like for her on the night she passed...to be in a sedated state...not really knowing what was going on...and then to hear Jesus call her name.

He called for her.

She arose and followed.

thank you

During one of my visits home my mom asked if, upon her passing, I would thank all the people who prayed for her. She is now in the presence of Christ and, since so many of you have lifted my family in prayer these past months, I wanted to post an expression of our deep gratitude. My heart is full of "thanks" for you.

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you..." Phil 1:3

November!

As we head into this "month of giving thanks," our hearts are heavy with my mother's illness as we know this month may be her last with us. November also marks the year anniversary of the passing of Scott's father, our beloved Pa. How I miss his grin.

Yet we are not consumed by this heaviness.

Bittersweet. Sweetly bitter?

How does one describe hope in the midst of grief, joy in the midst of sadness, peace in the midst of pain? Because, yes, the pain IS there, and it IS real. But so is the joy. And the peace. And the hope...oh, so much the hope! For in our hearts is the only hope that is unchanging and unfailing. It is steady and sure. It will not deteriorate, decay, or die.

It is the hope of our Risen Lord. And, my, how He loves us.

He loves you, too. He really, really loves you.

And so we give THANKS for...

M had a great time at Fall Festival! Ponies, treat bags, soft toys, and seeing the M Family made for a truly festive evening. He got too hot in the monkey suit, so we had a little naked savage running around for awhile. M would only jump in the soft toy once I got in with him...before that he just stood at the entrance and held his dad's hand. The pony ride could have been a hit except his little shoe kept slowly...slowly...slowly falling off which was STRESSING HIM OUT! At the moment said shoe lost contact with foot, wise daddy swooped M off the horse and volunteer guy dodged in and out of little pony legs to retrieve the sacred croc. The funniest costume? A little dude dressed as Elvis...complete with guitar and hair!



I made a delicious pumpkin crunch dessert that I found on the Phatchik blog. I won't share her name because I don't think it is public on her blog, but she is also the generous sharer who told me how to create the following mosaics with my flickr account. Click here for the site. You can click on the mosaics to view them full screen. NOTE: just eat like one spoonful of the crunch and then walk away...your stomach will thank you!

MAKING IT MEANINGFUL: As we've talked about making the holidays less about money and more about love, I decided to involve M in doing our Christmas cards. I found some inexpensive Christmas letterhead that has an uncolored border of trees, mittens, etc. , and M has been coloring on each one. Once he is finished, I will write a letter of love to each card recipient. I think this is going to take quite a bit of time, which I like because I want to really reflect on the blessings of family and friends this year...and to let them know they are cherished.

THANKS FOR THE DAY: Today I am grateful for a DELICIOUS potluck with families of the men from Scott's Bible Study. What a great group of guys to have your husband hangin' with!

a little bedtime story for you

Tonight M had his first BIG spill...falling face first onto the tile...bloody, bloody, bloody nose.

We are excited for Fall Festival tomorrow at our church! M is going as a MONKEY! But...he already outgrew his costume!!! Not kidding. I bought it awhile back since I was unsure how often we'd need to travel to IL, and I didn't want to miss out on getting it...and now it is too small. Today we made treat bags for the kids on our street, and we're going to deliver them tomorrow. Will post photos!

WINNER!!! I won a free photography class with Christi at Rawsii!!! I think there are still spots open if you are interested! I am really excited. My goal is to get good enough to take unique, quality photographs for families who cannot afford to have their pictures taken by a professional. A guy we know serves in an amazing ministry in which he moved into a rough neighborhood and brought the love of Christ to the people living there. It's been a total transformation! These are some of the people I would like to bless...so pray that Christi can teach me to focus in manual!!!!

edited2add: Here is a site I checked out last night and wanted to share since I am always looking for new ways to give away your money! HAHA! http://onemillioncan.com/ I loved all the causes, but I was especially diggin' this video: http://megavoice.com/indexvid.php ... I just wanted to give all those people a BIG HUG!

cheetos, zoo, & tortillas

While M is still not a chatterbox, he does choose to speak about the important issues in life, such as "CHEETOS, MOM." Cheetos are dear to my heart because they were in the picnic lunch packed by Scott on our very first date...and again on the day he proposed. I hadn't eaten any in a very long time, but I bought some yesterday...WOW, I had forgotten how cheesy-crunchalicious they are! So now when M says, "CHEETOS, MOM," I'm inclined to oblige!

M and I went to the zoo. Had the place to ourselves. We took his zoo book, and he enjoyed looking up the animals we encountered!

This morning we attempted to make homemade tortillas. If I am going to grow old in the desert, I need to learn the staples of southwest living. I think our breakdown occured at the kneading stage when M decided to roll out our dough balls into snakes. Needless to say, we ended up with some pretty tough tortillas.

Advent Conspiracy

I've been meaning to re-post this post, but kept forgetting until Rachel shared this video:



Also on Rachel's site is a video created by her former church to promote Advent Conspiracy...check it out!

Often when we watch a video like this our heart jumps, and we say, "ooooh, great idea!" But that great idea gets forgotten or tossed out the window when it's time to practically apply it to our lives.

D.L. Moody stated that "Every Bible should be bound in shoe-leather”...meaning don't just read it, live it! So... in the interest of putting feet to our faith, does anyone want to share any practical ideas you plan to implement this Christmas to get your family's focus back on Christ? For example, making your own Christmas cards, or spending a certain % less on gifts this year, or starting a new family tradition, etc

Also...regarding Advent calendars/spirals...is there anything in between the cheap paper calendars and the expensive wooden spirals?

my lifeline

If I were on "Who Wants to be an HTML-ionaire", my lifeline would be REBECCA! Everything good on my blog, I owe to her. Thanks, girl, for telling me how to make my slideshow large... and for all you do for this 1st time blogger.