I Went Deeper Still...

At the last minute I was able to get a ticket to Deeper Still in Atlanta and got to go with 4 great girls plus some other great women from our church. Despite the car battery dying across from the church, we persevered and had a fun drive down visiting.

We checked into our room, got all freshened up (which turned out to be a waste of time as we walked a mile up hill in the heat in downtown Atlanta!) we headed out with the 19,000 other Bible toting women.
At the first session we heard some great worship music and got to hear Priscilla Shirer speak. She is one of my all-time favorite women to hear teach. She taught about the Isrealites camping in the desert to meet God. Her point was that God takes us through hard times to bring us closer to Him. I'll be honest and say I didn't really want to hear this word. I had a really exhausting week and honestly wanted to be made to feel good not to know that I need to go through hard times.

Helped by great counsel of Kyla I realized that maybe my over tired, guilt-ridden stressed out state I've found myslef in lately is my wilderness, and I need to take the opportunity and meet with God. That is what I have been doing since I got back and feel so much better and more blessed.

After a great Word we trekked back to the hotel for some goofy girl fun. After Big Nanny, Heather, and I kept taking shots and gathering stories for our blog, we finally coerced Kyla into promising to start her own.

This is a pic of the blog pact that inspired this!
Sweet Chris made us really cute shirts to commemorate our great weekend, which inspired more goofiness.
Since I added on late, I got to be the floor sleeper. Unfortunately, the blow up bed deflated so I slept on 5 feather pillows. Everyone asked if I was exhausted, but I slept better than at home not being awakened by various little people needing me!
Big Nanny was determined we would have better seats Saturday,so she and Heather literally risked their lives to get there early and get us 6 rows behind Beth Moore. It was totally awesome! Kay Arthur brought an amazing sermon about the state of our country. Wow, I pray I know my Bible half as much as Kay when I am 72! Then Beth Moore taught on just one verse in the first chapter of Jon applying it in ways I had never thought of before. Yet, my favorite time was when the 3 of them talked and answered questions. They were so funny and such great examples of godly women.

Sorry for the bad picture, but I am a complete rule follower and therefore wouldn't use my flash!
The "Fab Five" decided we'd had enough fast food and ate a great meal at Olive Garden before leaving Atlanta.

Everytime they said at the conference "God brought you here for a reason" I felt it was totally true for me since the entire trip happened so unexpectantly. God taught me many things on this trip through both some great speakers and some godly friends. Here I sit renewed and happy to be home yet hungry to go... you guessed it, deeper still!

Wordless Wednesday...

Mommy Forum: Help Needed...

Yes, I am back from "vacation"- quotes to be explained later when I have much more time and energy. Right now I am needing mommy help. The babies have decided they will not eat baby food anymore, just like that. I have been giving them some table food here and there, but let's be honest it's just easier to feed them baby food especially when I don't get around to cooking dinner until late if at all. I really think my brain has erased all memories from having two children previously because I cannot remember what I fed them. How sad is that? So, I'm asking you to please leave a comment and tell me what your kids' favorite finger foods were. Besides, I have got to do better this time around of raising healthier eaters than my little goldfish diva, so I need your original ideas! The best part is, if they feed themselves that will give me about the hour back that I use up feeding them 3 times! You have no idea how huge that is! I am really trying to restructure here because I have got to have more hours in my day. Stay tuned later in the week for when I ask for advice about bedtime, yikes!

PLEASE leave a comment with your finger food suggestions, that is if you can remember better than me!

Blog Perspective...

So, ballet rehearsal was a little stressful changing outfits, videoing and picture taking, but it sure beats this...

http://dodddailydoses.blogspot.com/2007/06/if-only-i-could-have-chocolate.html

Just a little perspective from reading my old blog entries. I'm overwhelmed by the things I have forgotten (or blocked out in some cases) that my blog reminds me of, so handy!

Beautiful Ballerina...

So, June at our house means recital time. We had rehearsal tonight, and let me tell you- there is more cuteness than you can imagine in that building! It was awesome, made more awesome by the fact that this was something else I wasn't allowed to do last year due to bedrest. I'm loving making up every milestone I missed last year.

So, since we were all dressed up for rehearsal my bestie Amy offered to take her picture (and also let Jackson stay at her house and play Star Wars rather than go to 2 hours of ballet which makes him a hero in his eyes!). Of course, she's my hero due to these pictures of my gorgeous ballerina...

My only problem is she looks so grown up in these pics! Wish me luck as tomorrow as I volunteered to be backstage with all the ballerinas while all those other mommies relax and watch, more of me trying to make up for missing out last year! Oh well, worth every penny for these pictures and the scrapbook pages they will inspire alone!

Wordless Wednesday...

A Little Late...

So, last Sunday was our 12th anniversary but obviously with my illness it wasn't very exciting. We swapped goofy monkey cards (http://daddydoddsdailydoses.blogspot.com/) but it wasn't that exciting. So, I thought I would post about our other anniversary- June 6th. I'm obviously a little late, But here goes anyway...

Jon and I met at band camp when I was a freshman and he was a sophmore in the great way back of 1989. He'll love me telling this, but the first time I remember seeing him he was in full on make-up. See, all rookies got auctioned off to upperclassmen to be their slaves for the week. A group of girls bought Jon for like 80 something dollars and tortured him. I think somewhere in my soul I knew to save that moment because I can clearly see that moment when we passed each other, and he gave me that mischievious look that his children now give me. The second time I remember him was a few days later when I got to practice early and was sitting on the field and felt things hitting me. Then I realized this boy I barely knew was shooting the heads off of weeds at me. When I turned around again the grin; I should've known!

I actually went on my first car date with Jon, except I was dating his best friend and he was with another girl! We became best friends almost immediately and remained that way. Most of my junior year and all of my senior year we really didn't date anyone else and were inseparable. I think everyone, especially our families, thought we were a couple, but we considered ourselves friends. I knew I wanted to be more than friends the first time I saw him in his pin striped baseball uniform (love those things), but Jon was so scared we would "mess up our friendship", whatever!

So, we come to June 6th the anniversary of our first kiss! After a fun night of fishing at the golf course, Jon finally gave in and quit worrying about messing things up and kissed me. Thus, we consider that our anniversary of when we became a couple. This picture was taken one week later on our way to the beach with my family: Three years later we were married and on our honeymoon in Jamaica. Twelve years later we sit in Spring Hill with 4 children, no time for each other but are as good of friends as ever and more in love than day 1!