Easter!!!

     We had Easter here in Kansas, sad not getting to be with family but we still had a great day!! Our girls are not really old enough to understand the true reason for Easter and we still like to do special things so i had them repeat John 3:16 after me before we opened our "baskets".. They were cute. I don't know how to post videos but maybe I'll have the hub figure that one out! Anyways hope everyone had a blessed day! Jesus is the reason for the season, not just on Easter but also every other day of our lives!! I pray and hope to make this evident in our day to day lives and in the shepherding of our children!!

The dyeing of the eggs!!!

 we so excited, we so excited!!!))

finished product after we dropped them on the floor of course!!

Easter "Baskets"

sweet ducky love!!!

sweet bubby love!!

love my girls!!

they love each other dearly!!

Big thanks to grandma and grandpa for the attributed outfits! Mommy and daddy forgot about getting Easter outfits!)

HAPPY EASTER!!!



Kansas party!

pre-party fun!!

Happy Birthday!!

it's my party and i'll eat how ever i want!!)

Present time!!

 

Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate our babies!! We love you all and feel so blessed to have you in our lives!!

Birthday fun!!!

  Emma and Abigail's birthday are close so we celebrate their birthdays together. They are 12 months and 3 weeks apart, surprise surprise! We love it though. They fight a lot but also are best buds-such a blessing! We wouldn't change it for the world. Elijah is also due sometime within the month between their birthdays=) so we will have all 3 kids birthdays within a months span ...not planned and prevented in some cases but that's ok. God's ways are not our ways but His ways are perfect and we feel super blessed!
 Anyways, we did 2 parties for the girls this year, one in Oklahoma where all our family lives and here in Kansas! Here's some pics...

This party was actually on Emma's birthday so this is the first birthday pic we took for the day....we were at mimis and papas farm and she had already been outside, in case you couldn't tell!) Emma has some sort of magnetic force that attracts dirt to her face... happy birthday sweet girl!

What better way to start a birthday than a pony ride....wait that's not right?!?!?

That's better!



Rides all around! Cousins Tori and Prestyn.

   Princess smiles!

Not so smiley princess..

Sweet Ab's face! Lol!

Blowing out the candles!

Yummo! Cake time!

Either enjoyed the cupcake or has been bitten by a rabid animal!!) We heart Seffers!

Presents!!!!

 Abigail did smile, I promise!

A Little Blessing...

1 Peter 2:3-10

  "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

  As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,

  you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

  For it stands in Scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,"

  and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (ESV) 

   I just wanted to take a moment to say how good it is to be in the body of Christ. And oh how good it is for the Spirit to dwell within! The Lord reminded me of this when the girls and I stopped by to visit Daddy at a packaging event. (Ryan works for a nonprofit called Numana that packages food for starving people all over the world. If you want more info on it here is website www.numanainc.com) I had the honor of experiencing a true working of being the church while I was there. A brother, Ryan works with that I truly have only met once or twice came up to ask me how I was doing in my impregnated state; I told him fine and he asked me right then and there if he could lay hands on us and pray for us, our family, and soon to be birth of our son Elijah... Wow, to feel the radiating love of our Christ used in such a powerful personal way by a willing servant of His! What a blessing! I know that there are a lot of people praying for us and that the Lord is watching over us; it’s not as if this man said something magical or had something special that all of us as His children don’t have. I think the difference is when we as believers learn to walk in the Spirit in our day to day lives, not just to learn our memory verses or be a member of a congregation. He is calling us to BE the CHURCH, not just go to church!  I want to be the CHURCH!!!



Happy Easter!!!!

Oh church, come into the Light!!!  CHRIST is Risen from the dead!! He's Alive!! He's Alive!!

Living He loved me, dieing He saved me, buried He carried my sins far away..rising He justified freely forever, one day He's COMING oh Glorious Day!!

Fast forward…

 I wrote the first post to the blog about 6 months ago…..yeah, took me that long to get it started. Sad, but its not like I have not been doing anything… we are expecting our 3^rd child any day now and life is crazy with a just recently turned 3yr old (sniff sniff) and almost 2 yr. old… wow time flies!!  Things have been good and busy and crazy…

 Ryan and I both are growing in the Lord. Though we have been and are continually going thru different seasons in our life we both feel as if HE is revealing new things to us each and everyday!! What a great thing it is to live and know our Savior!  And to be able to walk and commune with Him daily!!

  I write this actually on Easter weekend. I am 37 weeks pregnant and just realized I need either a root canal or tooth pulled. Pregnancy has been rough on my teeth. Anyways after whining and monumental melt downs for two straight days (filled with lots of “why me’s” and how come “God is punishing me”-straight lie from the enemy), the Lord reminded me of what this weekend represents and what it is that HE has done for us! Jesus who was without sin went thru a lot more than a sore tooth so that I could be with Him.. What a humbling experience..

THANK YOU MY KING FOR LOVING US ENOUGH TO DIE FOR US SO WE COULD BE WITH YOU!! MAY WE LEARN TO LIVE AND BREATHE EASTER DRIVEN LIVES EVERYDAY AND NOT JUST ONE WEEKEND A YEAR!!

2am woes....

I just read my 2am post and I should prob apologize for the lack of proper grammar usage...but I will not!! never!! It WAS 2am and I have pregnancy mind!! and and...well there are plenty of things wrong with me but grammar usage is not at the top of my list of things to worry about! the end.

The Beginning.....sorta

   Have you ever had one of those ah ha moments? Well that’s what this is. This is me having an ‘a ah’ moment but wishing my ‘ah ha’ moment wasn’t at 2 in the morning and being fueled by a headache the size of Texas. Wow, what the Lord has to do to get us to stop and pay attention or listen to His voice. You may say oh she is just bored or can’t sleep, well I had this same argument with God as I was I lying in bed trying to go back to sleep. It Isn’t funny how arrogant we are sometimes. Like arguing with our Maker? For goodness sake He is the one who spoke us into existence and we sometimes feel the need to be like "um, that’s not the way its supposed to be God.” Wow, I am an idiot sometimes.

  Hmm… where to start? I guess I should start in the midst of Ryan's (my husband) and mine biggest ahha’ moment yet…

  Long long ago in a far away land…not really far but I just always wanted to say that. Every once in a while I am a wee bit known for having a flair for the dramatic. This is what gives me a love for corny high school musicals, whew... Glad I got that off my chest. Confession is good for the soul; back to real life...I'm going to try to be semi serious now-well, Ryan and I were in the midst of what we thought was a “church plant” in nowhere, Kansas. To all our friends and family, I apologize, but I think its time to face the facts. We moved to our nowhere, Kansas not knowing anyone or even why we were really here. We thought we were here because we were supposed to start a church, because we were so awesome and all. Ha, like we were the next Billy Graham or something. Ok lets get these dates up; we moved in the summer of ’08. Wow, seems like forever ago and then it seems like yesterday. It wasn’t until the summer of ’09 that we finally truly obeyed and well really listened to what God’s plan was for us to be in nowhere, Kansas. Yes it took us a year of making fools of ourselves and arguing with God over it before we finally were obedient. While we were here being the next Billy Graham of our choice of the only "right" denomination and way to heaven, God was stirring in us something new, fresh, and quite frankly terrifying. How were we going to tell people that we were not starting their church anymore after they had been supporting us for almost a year. How do we explain about the veil that was lifted from our eyes that God doesn’t need new church buildings but needs the church to be awakened to His Voice and His Kingdom. Not that I think that starting a church is wrong. So, If you are gonna take offense to things like this you prob shouldn’t read any further because I’m just gonna say what I feel and how the Lord speaks to me. Thank you J. I think the rumors started that we were joining a cult; ha. Wow, that hurt and infuriated and humbled us and made us laugh all at the same time. people we love and cared for the most thought we’d gone off the deep end. Maybe we had but I can guarantee if that’s what it was it was God who had to push us over the edge. Praise the Lord! I remember that night; It had been a year since we had moved up and I think we had known for about, oh at least 6 months what we were supposed to do. Oh would we fight, not only God but each other. Lol. Ryan would say something about how God had shown him something or he feels a leading in a certain area and I would tell him he was crazy and sometimes when the Lord started dealing with me as well, I would literally tell him that I didn’t want to here about it. Its funny now to me. I knew what God was doing and I was going to go down without a fight. Reminds me of how Jacob wrestled with God.( I’m not for sure where exactly that is but you are welcome to get a commentary to look it up if you want) boy, did we wrestle. But unlike Jacob we didn’t get it in a night it took us a whole year. The last straw (or thigh bone) broke on a night that we realized that everyone that we had tried to talk to about it had no idea what we were doing and most def didn’t have the faith that we were following God. I remember praying that night and finally saying out loud "not our will but thine," and the answer being clear as day. I also remember thinking ok Lord will you tell these people and those people so that they don’t think we are bumming losers and know that we are following You. Well, God didn’t answer that last one fully, ahmm… and I’m most certain that I do not want to know what some people think of us. But that’s ok because that night at that very moment when we surrendered I had the sweetest and most assured peace that we were for once in our lives finally fully where God wanted us to be. Wow, what a wild ride it has been, terrifying and humbling and exciting but worth it every step of the way. God brought us to nowhere, Kansas to take us away from everyone and everything we loved to teach us how to love Him and live for Him alone. And although we still fail so much, we are learning to source not from the tree of knowledge whether it be good or evil, but we are learning to eat from the tree of life. And guess what?!?, that tree of life is for us and anyone who wants it! Jesus, sweet wonderful Jesus. So this is it, this is our purpose this is our great revelation in His Kingdom. Oh sweet Jesus, how we long for thee!!