When reality bites...

...sink your teeth into a vampire romance novel (or 3 or 4)! I too have been sucked into the Twilight saga. I have five chapters left in book 3 and so far it is my favorite. I decided last night that this was how I was escaping the stress of my current reality. And it is a great escape.

Please read

Click this link to help fight for one of the things our former President did right! I feel Obama could be good for our country in some ways but his belief on the right to choose is not one of them.

Fight FOCA http://www.fightfoca.com/

Daniel 11:32b But the people who know their God will display strength and take action.

all too familar

This was our house at the end of December last year. It is about to look like this again. I think we are closing Feb 3, which is about a week away! We (I) have been packing a lot lately. I actually would rather it be just me doing the packing. Chip helped the other day and just about packed everything in the kitchen. It is OK though. As he likes to say, he will get his fair share of moving! TRUE. But then I will get to unpack it all. I guess it all evens out. The one thing that overwhelms me is that about every other box I pack is labled "PLAYROOM". And we have i don't know how many boxes in storage that are supposedly going to the playroom as well. However, the boxes have been in storage since we started showing the house and the kids have not once asked for them. I do not even remember what all i packed. So, those may not make it to the new house. I am thankful that this playroom is not attached to the den like the one now. It is off the kitchen which should help with keeping toys out of the den, in theory.

Thought for the day

Make me thankful for the mess, for it means I am surrounded by little ones!

Picture me chanting this while rocking back in forth in the fetal position :)

things are moving right along

So far we have done the home inspection and found that there were no major issues. The things we wanted addressed will be covered in the home warranty. So, we are just waiting on an appraisal and a closing date. It looks like it will be in about 2 weeks. I have been packing a lot. I will do a few more boxes today. It is still not reality to me. Because we are in BR alot these days, we are ready to live there. However, it does not seem real to me that I will no longer reside in sweet little Hammond with my old and new friends.

Here is a picture of our house. (It is super tiny because I got it off the internet.) We are really excited about the neighborhood. It is really flat (as is all of south Louisiana) with lots of sidewalks & a neighborhood swimming pool. We are getting more excited about the house itself. As you can see it is blonde brick with white shutters and a brown roof. Nice! All of those things can be changed eventually. Our first point of attack will be the oak overload in the den and the blue carpet and walls in the bedrooms.

NIGHTmares

I hate night time. My kids don't want to go to sleep anymore. It is 8:40 and Nate is in his crib yelling, "MaMa". I like to hear him say my name but not for an hour and a half. I worked this morning and then did not get a nap because Nate decided to sleep for about 20 minutes. I must say though that he and I had a great time playing while the other two slept. Yesterday he gave me a big fat open mouth kiss. It was so sweet. Today we were playing on the couch and he started attacking me with kisses. He would not stop. He kept diving into me and almost biting my face. He and I both thought it was so funny. So that was a side note from the point of the post. Anyway, they will not go to bed. They are napping at their normal time. It does not matter how many times Ella comes out of her room and gets spanked. She keeps coming back for more. Maybe because it has either been raining or cold lately that they are not getting out all of their energy. We have got to remedy this.

First Gumbo

The week before Christmas I had a delicious gumbo, made by a new friend. So, I decided that the day after Christmas I would use the leftover turkey to make a Turkey & Sausage Gumbo. I was really nervous about it because I did not think it was turning out right. But, as it turns out it was really good! Chip loved it. It made a ton so I froze some. My mom and sister came the next week to visit while Chip was out of town. And I had to feed some to them too. They loved it! It is a new staple at our house.

Christmas Pics, not quite a month late

We had a really great Christmas at home. Here are some pictures from the day.

The captions are below the pictures.

sporting raincoats from one of Chip's aunts
SAINTS shirt from Poppy & T
Playing a new cars game from Nana & Poppy in his new spider man costume
2 out of 3 smiling ain't bad
eating a candy cane and showing off more in her new bag
My dad and Terrie came for lunch. I cooked everything! And it was delicious!
found this at a consignment sale for $15!!!
our little reindeer
new "pack pack"
loving his Narnia figurines

Tagged by April

This is the 4th picture in my 4th file. It has been posted previously so I think I want to post another one as well. (Ella crying because she cannot reach the coke)
This is my new wallpaper. I love this picture. One, I think it is cute and, Two, I think I look young. Christmas morning, helping Ella with her stocking.

short story long

We got a contract on our house and have a contract on a house in BR. We are really excited. God did a miracle in that so many things had to fall into place for all this to work. Plus he did a work in my heart through His word. I was reading to the kids one night out of their Big Picture Bible while Chip was out of town. In the story of Abraham it said he went outside, looked up at the stars and "believed God". That stood out to me in that he did not believe in God but that he believed God. He trusted in who God was and what he said. I prayed a lot after that and really decided to trust God again with the sale of our house. I trusted him a lot with it back in Sept. By the end of Dec my trust was lacking. Then the next day I was reading in my own time in Romans 4 where guess who was mentioned? Abraham. And it said that "in hope against hope he believed." Again I was convicted and challenged to have hope that it would in fact sell at the right time.

Either that day or the next Chip calls from Atlanta and says that someone is coming to look for the second time at Jen's townhome. Jen is one of our students. She approached us about buying our house after we announced that we were leaving. But, she had to sell her condo first. Well, in a market that is poor to say the least, we thought there was no way she would be able to sell it before we needed to move. But, she put it on the market only hoping to buy OUR HOUSE! So, she got a contract on hers and the next day faxed us a contract that we accepted. We immediately went to look at houses. Actually we had been looking for a while and were really excited about one. It was a little out of our price range but we were hoping to be able to get it for a little less than the asking price. We actually made an offer on it that was not accepted. Everything in my flesh wanted that house. But, I did not have a peace about how the monthly note would affect us. So, again I was reading in Romans. Chapter 8 this time. Verse 6 says, "for the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace". Not to over-spiritualize or take a verse out of context, but God really gave me a peace about buying a cheaper house that needed more updating, knowing that I would be much more financially peaceful each month. So, we made an offer that was accepted and we should close in about 4 weeks.