Psalm 23 Revisited...

Having grown up in the church (and Christian school -- and Christian College for that matter), I had always heard the 23rd Psalm read at funerals, or when someone needed guidance. I read it again recently for the first time in a long time. And although the words flowed freely from my memory, something else popped out at me that I wanted to share with you.

A psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside still waters,
³ he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,^[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

This time, rather than hearing the words with a down-troddened voice, all that kept popping out at me where the PROMISES that God gives us. And here they are...

• Lead me beside quiet waters -- contentment
• Restores my soul
• Guides me in paths of righteousness
• Comfort me
• Prepare a Table before me
• Protect me in the presence of my enemies
• Anoint me with oil - my cup overflows

And a final resolve from the passage, "Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever".

I was encouraged by this passage as I approached it differently and received much more from it.

God promises us many things and he provides guidance, restoration, and confidence through his presences and his Word. I hope you take hold of them each day.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!!

Our Father's Day was celebrated as our sweet little family!! After church, we hopped in the car and headed to the local beach. And when I say local, I mean local... less than 6 miles away from our house! We stopped and picked up KFC on the way and had a lovely picnic together, before heading to the beach for a couple of hours of playing and swimming and lounging. It was a perfect day for the beach... not too sunny, not too hot... just perfect. And a perfect day to honor our sweet daddy and his love for our family!!

This was her favorite part of the day. Penny LOVES to have daddy throw her in the air. When he was doing it Finn, she'd just sit on the beach and cry while waiting for her turn.
My love -- although he looks annoyed -- enjoyed his day off.
My precious babies in the surf...
A boy and his dog... their first walk together.

Big Girl Bed

For weeks, I saw this day coming and just was unsure of when it would actually happen. Ocassionally when she doesn't want to go to sleep or to nap, Penny will put her legs up on top of the rails of her bed. I've always scolded her for it, but knew she'd get brazen enough to actually climb over. Recently, Finnegan has been entertaining his sister in the morning before we are up. On Friday, Finnegan went in and visited Penny before coming to see us. After he left her room, I was standing in our bathroom in a heard a thud, and then little pitter patter of her feet down the hallway. I knew exactly what the sound was. She ran into our room and bathroom with a huge smile on her face! She was so proud of herself. So knew that that would be the last day in her crib.

And since it was a Friday, it was a perfect opportunity for her daddy to work with her on each nap and bedtime routine to keep her in her bed. The first night, she only got out once, although she woke up once during the night crying and really inconsolable, well, accept until Daddy visited one last time. :) She also was sleeping on the floor when we checked on her right before our bedtime. I remember those days with Finn :) And at nap today, I went up to get her, and she was just sitting in her bed, waiting for us to come get her. :)

Here is a picture of her big girl bed, and our sweet princess, enjoying her new space. :)

I'm here

Readers - I do really apologize for the delay in recent posts. Things have been going well, and moving right along here.

I have much to share about what God is doing in my personal life. I hope to write more later this week.

Hope all is well with you, my dear faithful readers!

xo

Doomsday??

So, according to this so called christian group, May 21, 2011 is Doomsday, the day that Jesus is suppose to return back to Earth and take all of those who believe back to Heaven.

I am a Christian. And I believe that Jesus will return to Earth and claim those which are His. However, I don't believe it will be tomorrow. But, it did get me thinking... All this doomsday talk and "business" ventures that have turned up has gotten me about my children. Ok, so the Bible NEVER says what will happen to children in the rapture, or in eternity. We as humans have come up with all these ideas of how it will work and all (and No, I haven't read Love Wins yet). But since we don't know, I got slightly concerned about my sweet babies, who have yet to make a personal decision about Jesus yet. These are questions I'd never been faced with (since I've just had kids -- well within the last 4 years). So, here is the question I was plagued with... If (and when) the rapture happens, and my children aren't taken, because (of age) they haven't made a decision about Jesus, who will take care of them? Will they become victim to the evil left on Earth? UGH.

So I did what any woman does when these questions plague my brain, I posed it to my husband. And you know what he told me? The perfect answer that I needed at the moment and still rely on... the reminder that is always needed... "Don't you think that God is big enough to take care of it? Let him worry about them."

Oh, ok, I will! I will love and obey God, and follow him and let him take care of the details that I can't control.

Bed Time

When we went to Seattle, I was awake for nearly 24 hours without any sleep. Then began the week recovery of sleep and then we were back in the east coast time zone. We've been back on this side of the country for almost 2 weeks now, and I CAN NOT seem to get back on this time schedule. I still can't go to bed much before midnight (or 12:30am) and therefore, can't get up much before 9am. Seriously!! It's crazy!

My kids had a difficult adjustment, and are still on later schedules than they used to be. Finn doesn't get up much before 8 or 8::30am and Penny doesn't get out of bed until I'm out of the shower. There have been several days that she doesn't get out of bed until 9:30 or 10am. Seriously, this is so crazy! But yet still takes a pretty good nap and goes to bed on time (8:30pm-ish).

So, here I sit at 11:40pm, not even sleepy... wondering what I'll do for the next hour :)

To Seattle and Back

It has been almost a year since we moved from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast. So we saw it fit to take a trip back to visit our house and friends. We also decided to travel during the weekend of our friend Kelly's 50th Birthday and Mother's Day. And Oh, how wonderful it was to visit.

After our early morning flight from Reagan International, we arrived in Seattle with only a few moments of sleep. Finn didn't sleep on the airplane at all, and Penny only slept for about an hour. Our sweet eldest child can sit and watch movies and do activities for hours. Our sweet baby girl is every bit different than he is. She can't sit still for any part of time, unless she is strapped down. And the woman in front of us was clearly unhappy that we brought our baby girl on the plane, and I'm sure she thought we gave our kids the pep-talk to be as loud and un-controlling as possible. UGH! Then she tried to give us advice of when we travel next time of "things she used to do with her kids on airplanes". WHAT?? You have kids and aren't compassionate of us! UGH!

We arrived in Seattle and were warmly greeted by cold and brisk weather, after leaving 80 degrees and our friends waiting for us at our house. As we drove from the airport to our house, Ken and I looked at each other and noted how much it felt like we hadn't even left. What a great feeling... to feel that even though we'd been gone for almost a full year, we felt like we hadn't left for a day!

That first night, I went to the city with one of my besties, Shawnta. She got a hotel room for us in downtown, and we walked through the streets, visited the Cheesecake Factory and had cheesecake and martinis. The next day, she'd booked a Glycopeel for us at a local salon and spa. And oh my! If you've never had one done, you should. It was so great! I loved how it made my skin feel. I never understood the idea behind a facial. But this was very nice and I enjoyed it. I felt very pampered. (This was my gift from Shawnta for Mother's Day!)

Shawnta is such a "tourist". We took all kinds of silly pictures. :)

The day when we returned, I went on a shopping trip with my other bestie, Sara. We went also and had dinner together.

On Saturday, we spent all day celebrating Kelly and his 50 years! We played RockBand, the men worked on Kelly's boats for this boating season, and the women chatted and cooked :) We spent "family" time together. Oh, how sweet it was. On Friday, we took the kids to a bounce house for some fun. They had a blast!! Here are some photos from our visit...

The men in the garage doing their thing... :)

The kids were SOO tired by the end of our trip (both our kids and the others) :)

I've had several people ask, and I've come to realize that with our move to MD, I really pushed my feelings down about leaving Seattle. When we arrived in MD I really put my nose to the grindstone and got involved and meet new people. And I just came with the idea and feeling that I needed to "pull my big girl pants up and move on". I wasn't going to be able to go back and there was no reason to sulk over not being able to go back. So I didn't. But going back (combined with the WONDERFUL trip we had in CT with our family) reminded me how much I love being with my family and my friends and how blessed we been for these people who mean so much to us. So, we look forward to going back. :)