Weekend Of Family Fun

What a WONDERFUL weekend we had…..wish we could have perfect weekends like this more often.  First, the weather was phenomenal….I even broke the boots out for our fun adventures!  I am a jeans, sweater and boots girl all the way and LIVE all year-long for this weather to get here…..fall is the BEST!

Hannah was out of school on Friday and Dennis actually took the day off so we headed to St. Augustine to do a little shopping, eating and strolling!  I am horrible because the only picture I took the whole day was of my lunch at the Yard Bird Cafe, exciting, huh?  I should have at least snapped a picture of Hannah and Henny together, but I didn’t….bad mom!  Hannah was in desperate need of new shoes.  My poor child has the fattest, thickest, widest feet EVER and we have to spend a fortune on new shoes for her because the only shoes that I have found that fit her feet are New Balance, Merrell and Crocs.  St. Augustine has a Merrell and Croc outlet, so we headed there first.  We ended up buying her 4 new pair of shoes, but for what we spent, I could have bought me 8 new pair of shoes and I won’t outgrow mine!  GEEZ!  For anyone that doesn’t know me, I have a MAJOR shoe obsession!  I lost count of my shoe collection years ago after I hit the 200 mark.  Dennis made a rule (that I have never followed) that for every one new pair of shoes I buy, I have to get rid of 2 pair…..stupid rule, I know; hence why I ignore it!  HA!  But, with Hannah’s feet and shoes being so expensive it is really cutting into my shoe budget……the one good thing is I won’t have to worry about Hannah EVER having a shoe collection like mine, not at those prices!  HA!

After our shoe shopping adventure, we headed to downtown St. Augustine and ate lunch at the Yard Bird Cafe.  It was very different and very yummy!  It was fun just sitting in this quaint little hole in the wall cafe together and enjoying each other’s company.  St. Augustine is always a favorite of ours and we try to go several times a year.

On Saturday we got up and out fairly early while it was still cool outside.  We had to swing by my parent’s house for my mom to hem Hannah’s Halloween costume and then we headed to our property so Hannah could play on the playground.  We bought a beautiful piece of land almost 3 years ago in the “perfect” subdivision.  It is a beautiful place and SO quiet because there are maybe 20 houses in the whole neighborhood!  We have now decided not to build on it, so since we are paying HOA fees we try to use the playground as often as we can.  Hannah ALWAYS has the playground all to herself too, so she played and Henny ran around like a wild animal!  Dennis enjoyed watching the fish in the pond and hanging out on the dock some.  If I had thought of it sooner, I would have packed us a picnic lunch to eat there as the weather was just so perfect and beautiful.  We headed home as I had to get the house clean.  While I cleaned and started dinner, Dennis and Hannah played outside and had so much fun.  Dennis grilled chicken and pork chops and I made all the fixings for dinner.  It was a wonderful day.

Yesterday, we went to church.  Hannah LOVES the music in church and after the Praise and Worship Team was finished singing, she gave 2 thumbs up and said, “great job.”  During the preaching Hannah will get to mimicking our pastor.  Whatever motions he makes with his hands, Hannah will do it too.  It looks like she is just taking it all in and preaching her own sermon, which makes me crack up!  Hannah will sit there and wave at Dr. Brunson while he is preaching and being that we sit on the front row (which I REALLY HATE), I hope she isn’t distracting to him.

After church, we came home and Hannah wanted ice cream.  So, after we ate lunch and she did her homework for school then we headed to Dairy Queen.  She was so excited.  Of course, after she ate hers she kept dipping her spoon into mine and Dennis’ cones.  I think she got more of Dennis’ ice cream than he did!

What a fun weekend with my loves.  It was fun to just get out and go.  We RARELY do that.  Usually we are such homebody’s, but it was nice to have a few days of spending time together and not worrying about getting everything done at home, (even though I did get my house clean).  I am slowly beginning to realize that the moments of Hannah being a child are flying by and I want to take every opportunity to just enjoy her and these years.  In a snap, she will be all grown up and even though she most likely will always be with us, these childhood years won’t come again!

Until next time………..

 

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday

This post is going to be rather scattered…..I suppose alot of my posts are, but that is okay.  I wanted to post a few things that had been shared on Facebook.  One is serious, 2 are funny and one is plain cute!

As you know I have been dealing with needing to forgive and struggling with that.  Today, I saw this on Facebook and it really hit home:

As you all know our country is in a heap of trouble and it doesn’t help that we have a tyrant running our country in the ground, who is passing himself off as our President.  I could seriously write a whole series of blog posts on what I think about this President and his administration and the hard truths that he is ruining America and I probably will here very shortly.  But, in the meantime, I saw this on Facebook this week and it cracked me up…….

 

As many of you know my husband LOVES to hunt and he is quite good at it.  He keeps our freezer full of delicious deer meat, and I guarantee if you ate it at my house you would NEVER know it was deer.  I too, saw this on Facebook today and it cracked me up……didn’t really know this kind-of stupid existed!

 

Last but not least, I wanted to leave you with what I feel is a PRECIOUS picture of Hannah and Henny.  Hannah said…..”Henny’s heart thump-thump noise,” and “Henny all better now.”  I do love that Hannah had all her “bling” on while doing Henny’s check-up!

 

Okay, I know this is supposed to be “Wordless Wednesday” but that is really hard for me, so I made it Semi-Wordless Wednesday!

Until next time………..

 

Grace To Forgive

I am struggling……I am struggling with forgiveness.  I have been for a while now and just when I think I can forgive, something else happens and I get angry all over again.  Forgiveness is a difficult thing to do.  I think, if we were all honest, it is something we all struggle with at one time or another.  I have been the one that has needed forgiveness and I have been the one needing to forgive and I honestly think giving the forgiveness is the more difficult thing to do.  I hope and pray I am someone who sees when I need forgiveness and I ask for it.  I don’t want to be the person that has hurt someone so deeply even after it has been brought to my attention and yet I still don’t care.  I pray that if I don’t realize the hurt I have caused and it is brought to my attention that I am able to swallow my harmful pride and apologize.

I am learning though that offering forgiveness is not about the person that has done the hurting…..it is about the person that has been hurt.  Dennis and I have been so hurt by someone over the last 4 months and we honestly never would have ever thought that this person could do something like this.  This person has intentionally lied and gossiped about us and tried their hardest to smear our name.  We have gone through all the emotions…..we have cried, gotten angry, been sad, gotten angry again…….this person knows what they have done and still offers no remorse.  I cannot begin to tell you just how broken our hearts are.  To make it worse, this person has told anyone that will listen the lies and some people are believing them……so much damage has been done and I truly have no clue what to do about it.

People say, “just let it go.”  They say, “don’t worry about it and this is just who she is.”  Well, my response has been, “why do we have to accept this is how she is and allow it to continue?”  Why do we allow someone to get away with something?  Why don’t the people she is gossiping to tell her they don’t want to hear it?  I don’t understand enabling someone to continue their spewing.  If people would walk away or tell her they don’t want to hear it, maybe she would stop.  I have truly never been as heartbroken about anything as I am about this.

The other day, I was in Lifeway and there was a CD for sale by Tenth Avenue North.  I love their song “Worn” and it was on this CD, so I bought it.  The song after “Worn” was called “Losing” and I had never heard it until the other day and I listened to the words and it brought tears to my eyes as it was exactly the way I felt.  The song talks about being wronged by someone and asking God why.  It says that we all have a choice to make….we can love or we can hate.  It goes on to ask God to forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.  The part of the song that really got me was this:

Why do we think that hate is going to change their heart; we are up in arms over war’s that don’t need to be fought.  But pride won’t let us lay our weapons on the ground; we build our bridges up just to burn them down.  We think pain owns the apologizes and then it’ll stop; but truth be told it doesn’t matter if they are sorry or not.  Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound; of your mercy and your grace, Father send your angels down!

Oh Father won’t you forgive them; they don’t know what they’ve been doing.  Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them, cause I feel like the one losing!

This part of the song made me really think.  I am holding so much resentment toward this person and I am thinking if they were just sorry and would apologize it would all be okay.  But, the fact is this…..forgiveness isn’t about the person that has wronged Dennis and me.  It is about our heart and how we chose to deal with the betrayal.  We have to surrender to God’s mercy and grace and accept that this has been done and chose to move forward.  It doesn’t mean we have to have a relationship with this person.  In fact, I don’t believe that is possible at this point because trust has been so broken; but it does mean that forgiving her in our heart will give us peace.  It makes our hearts with God right and that is something we have to do.

So, my prayer since hearing this song is for grace to forgive this person.  Until I do that, I am the one losing because my heart and spirit cannot be at peace.  I have to cling to God’s grace and mercy knowing that if He can forgive me, then I should be able to forgive others.  Forgiveness won’t fix this…..it won’t restore a relationship and it doesn’t mean there has to be a relationship.  What forgiveness does is give me a pure, clean heart and rids it of the bitterness and resentment that I now feel.  I don’t think it can happen overnight; but it is my prayer that in time forgiveness will fill my heart instead of hurt and anger.

If you are struggling today, know that you aren’t alone and I know it sucks, but God is faithful and He alone will heal our hearts!  Lord, give us all the grace to forgive!

Until next time………

 

 

God Gave Me You

Today is a very special day…..43 years ago my husband was born!  I truly believe that God created Dennis JUST.FOR.ME!  Honestly, he is probably the only man in creation that could really live with and stay married to me.  I don’t know if that means the cruel joke is on Dennis, but in my eyes; God couldn’t have chosen anyone any better for me.  Like a puzzle, Dennis and I just fit.  His strengths help compensate for my weaknesses and my strengths help compensate for his weaknesses.  We honestly think ALOT alike; which is kinda scary in a way too!

Dennis is a remarkable man.  A man with a strong faith in God.  A man who has never been ashamed to share that faith and to live it.  He knows why we exist and he knows that one day nothing that we do here on earth is going to matter……all that truly matters is eternity and what we do here to impact that.  He is not a man to lay up treasures for himself here on earth…..his treasures will be in Heaven.

He is a man with high family values.  He LOVES his family more than his own life.  Not a day goes by that he doesn’t tell Hannah and me often that he loves us.  I have never for one second doubted his love for us and I know he would truly do anything for us; including laying down his own life.  He protects us, encourages us and PROVIDES for us (and you know that is big one for me).

He is a man with moral character and fiber.  He cares about life; the unborn and also those whom he is sworn to serve and protect.  He cares that his name and reputation is not ruined or destroyed by the temptations of this world.

Children love him, the elderly love him and honestly…..most everyone who meets him love him (this is quite disgusting at times).  I for one, don’t receive the “love” that he does, HA!  Of course, as I have stated before…..he loves better than I do too.  He is an all-around lovable and likable guy.  If you have a problem with Dennis…..I promise, it is your problem, not his.  Now, don’t get your panties in a ruffle….he isn’t perfect by any means but he is the closest I have ever seen.  I have been married to him for 12 years……I started out thinking this of him and my mind hasn’t been changed yet.

He has a heart like no other.  He gives willingly to those in need and never thinks twice if someone needs money; even if we really don’t have it at the time, he still gives knowing God will bless us in return (which He always does).  He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  Dennis has some dear friends and he loves those friends as if they were his own flesh and blood.  If he tells you he is praying for you…..you can take him at his word, because he is.  Even if you don’t want the prayers, you will get them anyway.

Today, I celebrate my husband, my best friend, my baby daddy……..I am so thankful that God gave him to me!  He makes me laugh like no one can.  He cries with me, prays for me, loves me unconditionally and quite frankly puts up with me, (which is no easy task at times).  No one loves their daughter any more than he loves Hannah.  I don’t have the words to describe the love he has for her……how they make each other’s hearts melt and how they are each others biggest fans!  Hannah and I are so blessed that he is ours and I wanted to take a minute and let the world know.

Happy Birthday Dennis!  WE LOVE YOU!

Until next time……..

Daddy No Work and Bedtime Prayers

I always dread the week that Dennis has to be on nights for several reasons.  Trying to keep Hannah quiet in the mornings while he is trying to sleep is extremely difficult, for one.  She also cherishes her quality time with him at night after dinner before she goes to bed.  They watch YouTube videos and sing with the Gaithers and lately Casting Crowns.  Dennis is truly Hannah’s favorite person and misses him horribly when she can’t spend time with him.  Dennis has to work night-shift one week every 8 weeks or so (which isn’t bad at all), but for Hannah it feels like eternity!  When Hannah and I leave for school Dennis is in bed and when we get home they have about 5 minutes (if that) together before he heads out the door.  So, usually by mid-week…..let’s suffice it to say, that she has become quite the “booger-head” with her attitude and behavior.  She just doesn’t understand that Daddy has to work and sometimes that means not being home when she is.  Everyday on the way home from school about 10 times Hannah will say…..”daddy, no work.”  When I tell her that he works hard so mommy can stay home with her, she says again, “daddy, no work.”  Now, I am pleased to say that when I say, “well, do you want mama to go to work instead?”  She does say no to that, as well **insert sigh of relief here** but, she sure doesn’t want daddy to work either.  This is where being a Kardashian wouldn’t be so bad!  For their money and that is it though!  HA!

She has really missed him this week and her bedtime prayer last night reflected just how much.  Here is what she prayed……

“Lord, bless daddy, mama, daddy, Henny, daddy, Mimi, Boompa, daddy, Maga, Papa, daddy, Grandma, daddy, Grandpa, daddy, Dr. Brunson, daddy…..Amen…..all done mama.”  

Yep, Dennis got prayed for 8 times last night…..she usually will pray for a few others but I guess Dennis got their spots…..she must have figured if she prayed hard enough he would reappear right before her eyes!

Hannah did get a “treat” this morning because instead of staying in bed, which he definitely could have and should have done because now tonight he is going to be very tired…..instead, he got up when we did and helped her get ready for school and then drove her to school!  Actually that was a “treat” for me too as I didn’t have to make that drive this morning!  Hannah loved it and didn’t want to get out of the car when he pulled into the drop-off lane at school.  I think she was having way too much fun “jamming” with their southern gospel music!  I will be leaving shortly to go pick her up and she will #1, be very disappointed to see me instead of him and #2 will be even sadder when I tell her that he had to go into work early today and he won’t be home when we get there.  Only 3 more nights and she can have her daddy back again…….that will make for one very happy little girl!

Until next time……….

Wordless Wednesday

They say a picture is worth a thousand words……

Daddy and Hannah playing with her Dora Dollhouse!

Until next time………..

God Made You Special

I made this little song up a year or so ago and Hannah asks me all the time to sing “her special song.”  She made up her own sign language to go with it and she beams from ear to ear when I sing it to her, (not that my singing is anything worth smiling about), but I truly think she knows what the words mean and just how special she is!  There is a lot she probably doesn’t truly understand…..but I am convinced that she knows just how special she is and that God made her just the way He wanted her to be!

God made you special, I hope that you know…..God made you special from your head to your toes.

God made you special and I hope that you see……God made you special and gave you to me!

I hope all my readers know just how special God made YOU!  We are all created by a loving God who wants the best for us.  I just wish everyone could and would try to understand that no matter your race, sex, age, body shape, financial situation, job description, gay/straight, disability or ability…..God Loves You!  We may not all get along….we may not all agree with each other (heck, look at our government right now)…..but the one thing I know for a FACT is there is not one single person on this planet that God doesn’t love!  We are ALL sinners in need of a Savior!  If my blog ever conveys anything….I want it to convey that!  GOD MADE YOU SPECIAL and He loves you even when you don’t love Him!  That is unconditional love……like NO OTHER!

Until next time………