I have found a gold mine!

I just have to say that God is so good to bless us with friendship.  I love family.  I love my husband, and I love my kids.  BUT there is something so different and golden about Godly girl friends.  

Last year after a women's conference, I was approached by two ladies (separately) who felt God calling them into a deeper relationship with Him and felt the need for accountability and encouragement.  Thus was the beginning of a tri-friendship that would take me through the depths of discouragement and struggle and to the tops of glory and blessing. 

We meet weekly (if possible) to hold each other accountable to stay in God's Word, to confess our struggles, and to pray for each other.  It is so refreshing to be real and open with these ladies who I know will love me without questions when they see the "ugly me" and who care about my daily struggles and joys.

I decided to post this to encourage others to seek out the same accountablity.  I have found a gold mine, and just couldn't just keep it to myself.

My favorite verse of the day:

May the Lord bless you and protect you.

May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.

May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

Gotta Love Free Family Night at the CDM

We took advantage of the free monthly family night at the Creative Discovery museum in February.  That's one of the reasons why we LOVE Chattanooga!

Here's our little paleontologist digging in the dinosaur fossil sand box.

I just love this picture of Joel.  This is what I get to see everyday. 

 I could just eat him up!

The boys really enjoyed the music room.

Here's Clark playing peekaboo!

Hooray for Potties

All day Friday I had a little voice in my head warning me over and over about our septic system.  Without reason or even the faintest clue to a problem, I just went on with my day.  By Friday 4 pm, I had had enough, and so I decided to go inspect.  We had no clue where the septic system was or how is works, but at least I had to try.  As I walked into the backyard, IT FOUND ME.

The unmistakable smell of sewage hit my nostrils and was pouring into our yard.  Normally a high stress person like me would go into hesteria over this.  I didn't panic because I had already been told about this problem from my little voice.

I told Michael when he got home from work, called a plumber, and got a $4100 quote for a repair!!!!!!!

EEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!! is what I wanted to say, but I chose joy over freaking out.  Deep breaths and praising God for our home and our convenient toliets, we told the man we would have to sleep on it and sell a kidney (hee hee).

Then on Saturday, we ripped up our deck which was on top on the  tank and started digging.  As I was scooping up dirt on top of the lid, and I thought I pulled up a rock.  Well no, it was a part of the lid to the tank.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a full view of the inside of our cess pool. Even as a plumber's daughter, I wasn't prepared for seeing or smelling that.

To wrap up this stinky tale and give praise to God,  another guy quoted us $60 to repair it.  We'll see what happens in then end, but whatever God is SO GOOD to me.  And this WILL NOT

 steal my joy and peace.

Here's my awesome husband digging around it.  He worked from 9:00am when it was 34 degrees to 7:00 pm on this thing.  He's has lots of battle scars to prove his valor.

Here's pictures of my cutie pies. They played outside while we worked all day.  I sure do love my

kids.  

PS I finally cost us $180 for the repair and $200 for the pumping.  Our babysitting money

 covered it!! 

Three Bears Week

I have been working with Clark on preschool stuff.  We are having thematic weeks, and this week we are reading the Goldilocks and Three Bears and doing activities with bears.  Today, we watched a fun British animated story of the Three Bears and made finger puppets today.   Along with the bears, we are learning about the letter B.  We fed Goldilocks foods that started with B.

 Tomorrow we will retell the story with the puppets, sort beans, and hopefully make patterns with them.  Then we'll glue them onto a paper to made the letter B.

It's not much, but it's a start.

http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-goldilocks.htm  (The movie on line)


http://www.first-school.ws/t/craft/3bears_puppets.htm (The finger puppets)

Big Six Date Experiment #1

Well we did it....we went on date #1 and had a blast.

Thanks to First Things First for the ideas.  http://firstthings.org/page/newsletter/great-datexperiment

We went out to eat at a restaurant that we got a $25 certificate for $4 on restaurants.com.  We really enjoyed the Big Six questions and had some good conversations.  My assignment was to pat his bottom at least twice.  I got some funny looks when I did that in public especially from the men.  He had to call me silly pet names. 

Then our next assignment was to buy each other very cheap, meaningful presents at a store.  We stopped off at Wal-Mart and with a few minutes to spare before our carriage became a pumpkin.  He picked out a vanilla candle with the story that the smell of vanilla will forever remind him of me.  Awwww.  I picked up a piggy bank to start saving money for Michael's dreams which I found out during our dinner conversation.  We also had to take a picture of ourselves.

It was so nice to get out of the house and focus on each other.  I was reminded of why we fell in love and felt my heart grow even more in love with my prince charming.

Valentine's Day Celebration, Crafts, and Ideas

I officially LOVE Valentine's Day.  We have been busy celebrating and preparing for the special day by making gifts and cards.

For Michael, I took some sweet pictures of the boys and put a cute heart border on them.  Check out the picture below.  I took this idea from MOPS and converted it into a V-day gift for Michael.  It's five envelopes stuffed with sweet letters and lists.  The categories: Why I love you, thank yous, my favorite memories of us, a poem, and a present on paper are my categories.  (Thanks Sara for giving my the Heart Attack idea.)

Here's Daddy's secret V-day gift from the boys.  (This one is actually Winston's, the boy I watch.)

Clark decorated a mailbox with heart stickers.  During the day, we check the love box for special treats, notes, and snacks.

For the big day, I'm making a heart shaped pizza and heart shaped cookies.

For Michael's present, I have secretly arranged a sitter for a surprise date night.  We are going to try out the Big Six Date experiment that I learned about from First Things First.  It's six dates planned with fun and crazy questions to discuss and optional activities that are CHEAP.  The first one is go out to eat, discuss the questions, take a pic of yourself and your sweetie on your camera phone, and then go to a store with $2 each to buy something for the other person.  Fun!! 

 Here's the website, if you are interested too.  I'll definitely blog about it later.  http://firstthings.org/page/newsletter/great-datexperiment

All of this is TOP SECRET until Valentine's Day.  I just couldn't help but want to share and inspire.

Whoo whee! Look who's three!!!

Clark David Christopher Lofton

Born February 8, 2007

Newborn

One year old

Two years old

Three years old

Our Clark is three.   He is such a blessing to us!  Here's a list of what makes Clark our special boy.

so silly and humorous with his stories and antics

plays with his imaginary white rabbit and loses it all the time--we're always looking for it

meticulous about his trains and cars--spends hours on them

social and friendly to everyone--we can't stop him from saying hello to everyone 

 loves avocados, oatmeal, Cheetos, and cheese

loves to share his food with us even when we don't want it

wakes up extremely cranky and with bed head

begs to be the first to pray every single time we eat

gives us lots of hugs and love yous!

says, "Hold you" when he wants to be picked up

Clark's Train Birthday Party

Clark is still in love with trains. So we had another train birthday party for his third birthday at his request.

We made him a huge cardboard train.  Every Thomas train has a name, so we named this train Clark.  He's the number three train.  And yep that's Clark on the front. One kid at the party said, "Oh that's a scary train."

Here's Clark the train cake. 

Clark got a bike for his birthday, but Joel got to play with it too.

He couldn't resist the temptation.  Here he is sneaking some icing off the cake.

Each car had something edible in it.  One car was the coal car (with chocolate covered raisins); one was a jewel car with M&Ms; one was a dirt car with yummy worms.

We had train tables set up and a jump house in the play room. 

Overall I think this party was a tootin good time. Thanks everyone for coming out (even if it was snowing a bit) and celebrating with us.  We are so thankful for our sweet Clark and his wonderful three years.

Spring is almost here, right?

We have enjoyed the warm weather in January.  And it is proven hard to explain to the boys the difference from winter and spring.  Clark has taken advantage of the spring like puddles in the backyard with his "froggies" that Uncle Danny and Aunt Diane gave him on his second birthday.

Joel enjoys playing with his legos.

Clark and his little friend digging in the sand.

God loves goof ups like me... I've got proof.

I was reading Genesis last night and something hit me like a Mack truck.   I love that about God's word; it's living and breathing and revelant to our lives each time we read it!!!

Well I was reading about how Jacob STOLE his brother,Esau's,  birthright by LYING and DECEIVING his father, and how that ticked off his brother so bad.  Well deceitful mama Rebekah told Jacob to hit the road and hide out until Esau's anger died down.  Or else Esau was going to kill Jacob.  Well Jacob high tailed it out of there.  He headed over to some family's land far away.  And you would think he would get what was coming to him, BUT NO he ended up falling in love and marrying NOT ONE BUT TWO WOMEN!!!!  (I haven't read that part yet, but I know it's coming) 

WOW!!!!!   God totally used Jacob's goof ups and sin to bring about the NATION OF ISREAL!!!! Which was intricate in God's story to bring to us a SAVIOR.

Wow!  Wow! Wow!

That hit my heart because I have been wondering about my life lately.   I sometimes get into the pit of feeling like I have made so many mistakes (on purpose and accidently).  I just can't seem to find peace about my decisions, and I struggle with regret and contentment.  I seek God but am constantly wondering "Am I missing Him?".  Well I choose to rest in the strength and wisdom of a God who can use a man who steals, lies, and runs away to avoid facing consequence to be the father of the twelve tribes of Israel and a forefather of Christianity.  I claim that our God is bigger than any mistakes I can make, and I humbly ask Him to use this goof up to bring Him glory. 

P.S.
I'm so glad that one day in heaven we'll see how our lives' "crazy" adventures were all for a purpose to lead us to God's perfect plan for our lives.   That's good news, HUH????