Juju the Dalmatian...

Seems all my posts are about Juju lately... she is sooooo photogenic, and into so much... lol Her class all dressed up like Dalmatians today. She was so excited!

God Has A Plan! and URNIt!

GHAP God Has A Plan! and You are in it! God tickles me. I have all these plans, all these things I think I want to do, but God has different ones. We had a plan, we were gonna be Youth Pastor's for a while, a maybe even throw in some Kids Pastoring in there, and then move on up to Senior Pastors... That is exactly what we did... after 13 Years or so of Kids and Youth Pastoring, we became Senior Pastors. BTDT GTTTP (Been There Done That, Got The Tshirt To Prove it.) And now we are Youth Pastors again, and THRILLED about it.

We are the Youth Pastors at Christian Life Fellowship in Calera Al. Yesterday we took our teen Drama Team to Fine Arts. We had ten entries, from Male Vocal Solo, to Guitar Solo, to Small Group Human Video, Large Group Human Video, Large Group Spoken Drama, and Small Group Spoken Drama. ALL TEN ADVANCED TO STATE! We are so proud!

A huge thank you to Lorna Davis, and her assistants Andrew Davis, and Stacey Meadows. They did all the hard work.

Oh and bonus, my two oldest kids, Matt and Nana are on the Drama Team!

Dare I Say I'm Back?

I hope so. After a 6 week battle with ATT, we finally have internet at home. Hopefully I can post on a regular basis now...

So we recently had a Snow day... My kids can't just do a normal snow man... lol

Love it

Here are some pics I took.

Run snow man, Run

This is juju's snow man.

Christmas snow. (a little late)

I thought these were sooo cool I LOVE the one of Juju with the snowflake on her nose!

Would you believe?

This is just a pretty picture of the sunset and snow.

Would you believe these are actual pictures of snowflakes?

Yes I am serious... How cool is that. How cool is God???

Let's just call it Nasty November...

Why you may ask? Wow, it has been a month. I started it off, the first day of November by a trip to the emergency room!!! Yay! wasn't me, was Juju, and we thought possible appendicitis... ewww. Finally at 2 am they say "naw... you're full of crap." and send us home to take some puralax... Yes literally full of crap, she had a back up poor girl.

A few days later my back/left side started really hurting... I thought maybe I had pulled a muscle when I was crammed on the gurney with Juju napping in the ER at 1 am... Then these weird spots came up. It looked almost like poison oak or something... I thought maybe I had gotten a slight burn, I had been living on the heating pad, trying to help the pain. Then we thought it was a kidney stone. The pain was very localized, and right where my left kidney should have been. Que teased me about the spots saying the kidney stone was trying to come out my side.

So I took this awful, awful let me repeat AWFUL home remedy, 2oz of lemon juice, and 2oz of olive oil gently stirred together, drink it like a shot... After the first swallow you don't taste anything... your taste buds are singed!!! I drank it, hoping to relieve the pain... It didn't help.

I went to the doctor on monday, they said "Well it isn't a kidney stone, but you have some sort of infection, according to your white blood count." That didn't help any, I was in pain.

So what did I do, just keep on keeping on.

Finally Que looked at me one day, and said "Does Shingles have a rash with it?"

BINGO No i'm not kidding. IKR??? I'm only 37 too young for shingles I thought. So now towards the end of the month, I am finally beginning to feel better, the shingles are drying up, one even fell off... yay. and guess what... I got the flu which left me with Bronchitis.... SHEASH. Will it never end? Yes it will, TODAY!

Today is the last day of November. It's rainy out today, lots of storms, which I love, so I am hiding in a Starbucks until it is time for my class. When I went up to the register to get something to eat, a lady walked up behind me and said "Let me get that!" and proceeded to pay for my drink and muffin!

December is looking better already!

If God cares enough to paint stripes on acorns, and place polka-dots on leaves,

SURELY he cares for you!

Green Couch Night 2010 revisited...

Look, my sister found an old pic of the green couch!! With Shannon holding me on it! What can I say? I've always been the 'bigger' sister...

Green Couch Night 2010

We had an awesome time! If you want to know why it is called "Green Couch Night" click here.

We watched 5 movies, two dramas, one of which was a real tear jerker... I cry every year at GCN... a sci fi flick that only I really liked, and two cackling comedies... Those are my favorite, I love to hear my mother laugh. She and I can't laugh quietly! Shannon made some wonderful potato soup,. and I supervised a spinach quiche. I was gonna cook it, but I woke up with Bronchitis... no fun... We put up mom's tree for her and most of all had a wonderful time. I told Shannon we need to do it again in July for her bday...

Mamma Dunk's Whipping Creme Pound Cake

This is Mama Dunk

Mama Dunk is well known as a wonderful cook. This is one of her recipes.

Whipping Cream Pound cake

3 cups sugar

1 cup butter

7 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla flavoring

3 cups of all purpose (plain) flour

½ pint whipping cream (do not whip)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees

Blend sugar and butter with mixer

Add eggs one at a time while mixing

Add vanilla

Add flour and whipping cream slowly (if you put all the flour in at one time you will have a spectacular mess to clean. Learned that one the hard way.)

Mix well until smooth

I use a bunt pan, sprayed well with cooking spray.

Bake in greased pan for 1 ½ hour at 300 degrees

Christmas Wishes

The stores do it, so why can't I? Do what? Start thinking about Christmas. So here are some items on my Christmas wish list...

1. this is soooooooo cool! It looks JUST LIKE A LENS... but it isn't, it's a MUG! too awesome I want one please... It is only about $25.

2. This is also super cool! These are tiny lenses, a macro/wide angle, and a fisheye. They fit on your cell phone camera... How cool is that? I don't really want the fisheye, but I would LOVE to have the Wide angle/Macro... it is only $20 Not asking tooo much is it?

Ok that's all for now... I'll keep looking, in case anyone cares...

Does God Care?

I believe He does. I found this today while I was cleaning... Enjoy. (I wrote it about 2.5 years ago...)

God Handed Me a Blanket.

Juliannah (6) fell and broke her arm, because of that, her left arm is in a cast, and sling. It really limits her mobility. She is having to be creative, and re learn how to do some things one handed.

We were driving in the car the other day, just she and I, and since my car doesn't have air conditioner, I had all the windows open. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes, not so much... When we first got in the car, Anny was hot, so she asked me to roll down her window. However as we started moving, she got cold and wanted her window shut. I was too busy driving at the moment, and told her she would have to wait.

If you have ever ridden in a hatch back with all the widows down going fast, then you know it is not uncommon for a small tornado to form inside and debris to start circulating (especially if you don't have the cleanest of cars...) Such was the case on this particular day. The debris that happened to float up was a blanket from the back. Anny grabbed it, and said "Mommy, I was cold and God gave me a blanket!!!"

I am so glad God cared enough to give her a blanket. What about you, do you need a blanket? After all, God tells us in Psalms 55:22 Turn your burdens over to the LORD, and he will wrap you up in a blanket... (DaNella's Version).

I'm learning to see sunsets again.

I miss my nice clean Fl beach sunsets... I am learning that even with city clutter a sunset is still beautiful.

Sometimes we need to relearn an old idea. I need to appreciate what I have and quit wishing for what I don't. Jus sayin...

Final day of summer...

For Nana's birthday we went swimming. Well four of us did. Que was working on some stuff and Matt was "too cool" to go... (my words, not his). This is one of my favorite shots, "One, two three, Go!" and they did. They all started at the same time, but wound up landing in the water at different times... Perfect Photo Opp!

I love you baby girl!