My Ebenezer

Josh and I put Noah to bed on Thursday night and patted ourselves on the back for another job well done. Kid asleep? Check. Time to relax! Well, almost... We walked by Noah's bedroom on our way downstairs. His door was shut (we always leave it open about 4 inches) and there was light peeking through the cracks in the door. WHAT!?! We opened the door to discover Noah reading books in his bed! Truthfully, I had to turn my face so he wouldn't see me trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny, but in a way it kind of was. I knew we'd face this kind of sneaky, quiet rebellion eventually (like when he's a teenager), but at TWO?? Oh, brother!!

Noah's favorite Bible story these days is David and Goliath. He alternates between main characters when acting it out, though I don't think he fully grasps that Goliath is the "bad guy" of the story. (Sidenote: To Noah, the definition of a Good Guy is someone who would like to hug him, and a bad guy is someone who would not like to hug him. "Mommy, is that guy a good guy? He would like to hug me?" Same goes for animals. A nice animal, according to Noah, would like to hug him, and a dangerous one--such as the Big Bad Wolf--would not like to hug him. Where to kids get this stuff? :)) I took two videos this morning; the first is of Noah telling the story of David and Goliath, and the second is of him singing, "Only A Boy Named David". Hope you enjoy!

Last night we said goodbye to Josh's parents. They had gone up to South Carolina for the week, but came back to spend the night here before leaving this morning around 4:30am. Needless to say, we bid them farewell last night. :) Matt, Jen, and Brianne came over for dinner, and we had fun afterward talking and playing with the kids and all the "new" toys that Melanie sent. (Thanks, Melanie! Noah loves the guns, the remote control car, and the legos.) Here are a few pictures of Grampy playing "Jump High To The Sky" with Noah and Brianne. He would end by throwing them on the couch, much to their delight. Please excuse the dirty camera lens. We'll miss you guys! Grandparents are always welcome around here. :)

I finished up Luke in my Bible reading today, and came across these verses: Luke 24:46-47 "and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." Repentance for forgiveness of sins. Isn't that a marvelous thought?! I get to exchange repentance for forgiveness of sins because of Christ's sacrifice for me! What an "unfair" exchange; that I just need to repent and all my sins--not just some--will be forgiven. Forgiveness from all my selfishness, spite, pride, evil thoughts, laziness, jealousy, impatience, lack of faith, and the list goes on.... What a great God we serve! What absolute joy not to be held hostage by the nastiness inside me, and that God loves sinners (me!). If that thought doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will. :)

Noah is 2 and a half years old now, and growing up way too fast for me! Here are a few memory snapshots of my little boy that I want to remember for years to come. He loves to be "in your way". If I'm coming down the stairs, he'll run to the stairway and shout, "I'm in your WAY, Mommy!" which is another way of asking to be kissed and tickled as I move him out of my way. The guy has a memory like an elephant for some things, and needs to be reminded a million times about others. Like all of us, I guess. He asks millions of questions. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. Maybe it's just me, but his laugh is infectious! I must laugh if I hear him laugh. I've overheard him having imaginary conversations with inanimate objects: "Mr. Dumptruck, would you like to go over this big pile of dirt?" then Noah narrates the dumptruck's answer: "Yes, I would!" and drives the dumptruck over the dirt pile. Hilarious. His Absolute F...

I think I've mentioned Nathan before on this blog. He has been an influential part of the start of Truth Baptist Church here in Florida; building our pulpit, manning the sound equipment, and doing an excellent job at whatever his hands find to do. As with most (if not all) Navy guys, we all knew that this day would eventually come, we just didn't know how soon. Nathan was training here in Jacksonville for about 6 months before he would be stationed somewhere for the next 3 years. I think I can safely say we ALL were praying that he and his family would be stationed here. The Lord had other plans though, and Nathan received his orders: to go to Washington state (which by the way has got to be just about as far away from Jacksonville as you can get without going to, say, Alaska!). Knowing that the Lord's plans are best and believing that this will be the best for our church, Nathan's family, our country, and the Lord's glory, we had a big send-off dinner for Nathan a...

I mentioned in my last post that Jen and I had the wonderful and relaxing opportunity to shop kidless all day yesterday. What a fantastic day we had! We began at a local thrift store, proceeded on to Kohl's, then to Ross, from there grabbed a bite to eat at Chick-Fil-A, and finished up at an outlet store. What I didn't mention was that I got all weepy in front of Jen at the thrift store. How embarrassing! It was one of "those" infertility moments that blindside me from time to time. There we were in the kid section, looking for baby boy clothes (did I tell you Matt and Jen found out they're having a boy? Well, they are.). I was fine. Really, I was. Jen asked if I knew what was lacking in the tubs of Noah's old baby clothes, which are bound for their baby come July. I was still fine. I told her what I thought, and then she suggested that we both go through the tubs of clothes; so she could see them and so I could reminisce about the days when Noah used to wear ...

So I'm behind on blogging. Again. I have a very good excuse though, which is that Josh's parents are in town! Last year we all mutually decided that it was a sad thing that we would go up to Freezing Conecticut in the winter and they would come visit Sweltering Florida in the summers. It just doesn't make sense! So we decided (why did it take us so long?) to swap--we'll start doing our visiting when our respective states are in their Balmy Seasons. For Connecticut, that would mean May-August. For Florida, November-April. Much better. :) Anyway, so Josh's parents flew in late Monday night, the 15th, and are leaving on Monday morning, the 22nd. As usual, this has been a busy visit! These folks would never just go have a beach vacation where there was nothing to do but read a book and soak up the silence. Action is key for them, so we're always busy going places and doing things. Mostly work. :) This week Josh, Matt, and Dad have been working at different projects;...

I think Valentine's Day is one of my favorite "holidays". I don't know if it actually qualifies as a holiday, since no one gets the day off, and it seems to me to be largely a Hallmark-marketing-ploy to make us buy things. BUT I think the idea of having a holiday around the idea of loving other people is a great one! Plus, red and pink hearts are so pretty, you know? And who doesn't need a reason to buy chocolate? :) I decided, in honor of Valentine's Day, to attempt to make a cheesecake for the first time in my life, after seeing adorable heart-shaped raspberry cheesecakes in a magazine. Josh's favorite dessert is cheesecake, and I was in a cutesy mood and wanted to show my devotion to him. Note to self: Don't try something just because it's adorable. Read the directions first to ascertain the difficulty before plunging in on some unknown voyage. Between making it, baking it, cooling it, chilling it, and cutting it into the cutesy heart shapes, ...

Well, folks, we have entered what I would call the Home Stretch over at Cellar Circle. I thought I'd share a few Before and After pics with you, since that is the exciting part of any renovation. Some of our projects are still in-the-works, but others (like the bathrooms and kitchen) are pretty much done. Let's start with the kitchen: I'll have to dig deeper for pictures of what this kitchen really looked like originally, but this is a pretty good "clean slate" look. After we gutted the entire thing, insulated, and sheetrocked. This was the kitchen after we painted and leveled the floor to correct a 3 inch slope! This is the kitchen today. A mess, but done! You'll quickly find when rehabbing, that any tools, supplies, odd things in your hands, find their way mysteriously to any and all available flat spaces. Hence the disaster on our counters! If you can mentally remove the clutter, you'll see the cabinets, sink, fixtures, lights, etc are all in ...

Jen and I have discovered the joy of free babysitting when you have family living in town. :) We have begun trading kids at least once a week, and it really helps both of us out. I even find that when I'm the one babysitting, I get more done around the house because Noah and Brianne play together. This means I'm no longer the Chief Playmate, and I'm free to do a little housework. I don't need to tell you how much I can get done when Jen babysits. :) Sadly, Brianne stood up just as I was snapping this photo so I kind of cut off her head. Sorry, Brianne! I took this to show you that Brianne is at the Dump-Out-Every-Bucket-Of-Stuff-You-Can-Find stage. This was about the 5th bucket she had dumped. Also sadly, she is not yet at the Put-Everything-Back stage! Neither is Noah, for that matter. Something must be done about this... We have all boy toys, so Brianne certainly gets her share of playing with cars while she's here. I love this face!

Have you ever played "Give Me 5" with a two-year-old? If not, you need to locate the nearest small child and give it a go. You will probably both crack up!

Somehow this turned out to be a stellar week at Publix. I usually go do some type of couponing there each week, but sometimes the deals aren't good enough to write home about. Or I'll only get one really exciting deal and forget to post about it. Not today! Today, Publix had their act together and offered terrific sales at the time that there were fantastic coupons available. I am thankful that the Lord enabled Noah to behave in the cart while I did some thinking. Couponing takes a tremendous amount of forethought, planning, and uninterrupted thought; have I mentioned that? I paid $13.87 for all you see here!!! That's: 2 boxes Special K cereal (these were FREE , believe it or not!) 2 cans PAM nonstick cooking spray 2 boxes Wheat Thins (these were 25 cents each!!) 2 bottles French's Mustard 4 pkgs Velveeta Shells and Cheese 2 pkgs Smithfield Bacon 2 bags Kraft shredded cheese 2 cartons sour cream 1 bag Stacy's Pita Chips I think this may have been my best coupon run...

Have you ever had this happen?... Your husband is late and you can't get hold of him on his cell phone, no one knows where he is, and all of a sudden it dawns on you. He's been in an accident. The worst ever. He's gone. What was the last thing you said to him? What are you going to do without him? How on earth will you raise your child alone? Etc etc etc. until you are all in a panic, and then your husband comes waltzing in the door. Oh. Never mind, everything's fine. You can't decide whether to be ecstatic he's home or furious that you couldn't reach him. This scenario happened to me just today, except it wasn't Josh who was missing. I went over to work at Cellar Circle and dropped Noah off at Matt and Jen's house. When it came time to pick Noah up for lunch, I went back over there but it didn't look like anyone was home. The lights were off. No sign of movement inside. I knocked, rang the doorbell two times and no one came. I knew Jen had plann...

Over the last few weeks of thinking about correct priorities and how to better order my days so that they are win-win (Noah gets played with and I accomplish things), I had a friend suggest the one tip that has made the biggest difference once I started practicing it. It's so simple, yet so pivotal. Are you ready? "Do everything in bite-sized pieces." Simple, isn't it? Normally I prefer to have big chunks of time in which to get my household chores, devotions, blogging, and computer work done. The thought of being able to get all my chores done in a couple hours in the morning was heavenly, so I used to try to do that. The problems started arising because Noah's attention span is so short where mine is so long. I'd be vacuuming the entire house, inwardly fuming that Noah could not understand what I meant when I said "After I finish this, I'll play with you." The 20-30 minutes for that particular task was an eternity to him. My dear friend sugges...

Josh's birthday party turned out to be a great time! We had a few people over, ordered bbq, and enjoyed celebrating with Josh. It's been 10 years since Josh and I had our first date--that was the week before Josh turned 20, and I can remember thinking 20 sounded old. Well, maybe not old, but definitely securely into adulthood. Established. Mature. HA! We got married when we were 21, and thought we had it together. Eight years later I know we didn't. (If you're struggling mentally with the math problem of how we could have gotten married at 21 and eight years later Josh is 30, it has to do with the timing of our wedding and Josh's next birthday. We got married in December, the month before Josh was to turn 22. So we've been married for 8 years, and now Josh is 30. Get it? Trust me anyway.) Have it together, that is. Are you with me? Didn't think so. So as I was saying, I know now we didn't have it together at 21, any more than we have it together at 30. T...