Work is Never Done!!!!

We have officially completed Tanners room. He has been asking us for sometime now to redo his bedroom for him because he thought it needed an upgrade; therefore, while David my brother and Yolanda my sister-in-law are here they decided to paint Tanners bedroom for his birthday. WOW what a job it turned out due to the fact that Tanner wanted to stripe one wall. Off to Lowe's we went to get the paint and away they went. Yolanda started painting all the walls while David and Tanner started chalk-lining the wall that was to be striped. It was a very time consuming task, but they finished just in time for us to put everything back in its place so Tanner could go to bed. Below are some pictures of the work in progress and the finished work of art (that is what Tanner and David call it). We just call it FINISHED!!!!

Here is the color prior to painting.

Here are David and Yolanda painting!

A little view of the mess in the middle of the room.

Here are the stripes taped out.

A little closer look.

Here is one of the walls with the new color.

Here is the finished product.

Here is a view with some of the stripes.

A Little closer view of the stripes.

It's What Is In the Cup That Counts!!!!!!!

My husband received an email from someone last week and it had a little power point slide-show, but I could not get the slide-show to work on here; however I did write the words that went with each caption. These are not my words and the slide show didn't say who's words they were to give them credit, but when I read this it certainly did make me think. Here they are so you can read them for yourselves:

The Wisdom In Hot Chocolate.

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.

During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:

'Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.

While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

The cup that you 're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups.

And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this:

Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups.

They are just tools to hold and contain life.

The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us.

God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.

The happiest people don't have the best of everything.

They just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate!!

Why do we tend to think just like that. I want to be the kind of person no matter what my cup looks like I make the best of it with what I have. Sometimes I think we forget just how Blessed we are. I pray Lord help me to be content with the things I have they may not be the best, but if the Lord is in them how could they get any better. He has always provided my every need.

Blast Into The Past!!!!!!!!!

Back in time we went, and oh what fun we had. While school was out we and our friends (The Wiseners) decided to go to Tennessee to visit the Amish. It was very cold that day so we carried our blanket and bundled up for the ride, that is the horse and buggy ride. At the Amish welcome center they give tours of all the farms in the area and of course what better way to see all of it then in a horse and buggy. We got a first hand look at their lives the way they cook, make furniture, wash their clothes, how they weave baskets and so much more. You can also purchase items that they make . The craftsmanship of their work was beautiful and very detailed. The people were also very nice especially the first farm we went to where he made all types of wood items such as beds, dressers, tables, benches, and just about anything you could want that is made out of wood (by hand of course). He said he had ninety-four grandchildren (whew); God help him and all of his family. I think he said he had twelve children, which our tour guide said is how many they would like to have. The next farm we went to, we got to go into their workshop where they were making swings and bird houses. The last farm we went to they hand made baskets and we were able to look into his shop as well. There was so much to see I wish we would have got to stay longer. On our way home we stopped at a little store that sold homemade fried apple pies, antiques, and all kind of fresh canned items. The thing I loved the most about it was the outside they had big barrels of different kinds of apples, and that reminded me of how it must have looked back long ago. Could help but think about how life would be without some of our comforts and technology and it truly makes you thankful for what you have, but it also makes you reflect back to how simple their life appeared to be. I say appeared because I am not sure what life without those things is like; however, I am sure getting out and doing things without the help of technology would be hard and time consuming as well. So the next time you climb into your car, or use a power tool to complete a task we can be mindful that there was a time when all those things were not available for us to use, and for some people they just choose not to use them. I just choose to be thankful for all that Jesus Christ has provided! God bless!

Here is Tanner so happy about the trip...lol.

Here is Jeff and I in the buggy on the way out.

Here is Kimi and Micayla enjoying the ride while Tanner and Kyle sit up front with the guide. Later on Camille and all the kids get to drive the buggy. They only got close to taking out two mailboxes...lol just kidding it was only one.

We weren't being rebellious by taking these pictures as the guide instructed us just not to take any pictures of the people i.e. the sign in the picture above states no pictures so I just wanted to clarify that.

And here is Camille what a beautiful young lady! We were so glad she came.

Here is one of the barns we went by. Notice no poles for electricity or wires because they never had them installed when the electricity was being put along the roads. As a matter of fact the poles just stop where their community begins. The guide also told us that if the Amish were to purchase your house they would go in and remove the wiring and the plumbing.

Here is one of the houses of the Amish.

They don't want you to take pictures of them because of their religion, but we found a hat in the store and put it on to see what we would look like.....good thing Jeff doesn't have a beard huh?

Of course Tanner had to be different and wear it tilted.

Here is Kyle too.

Here we are at the country store

Here is me and Kyle at the store.

Baptism in Jesus Name!

I received a comment asking us to explain why we believe it is essential to baptize in Jesus' name. In response I wanted to write the reason in a post in lieu of just answering the comment in case anyone else may have the same question. The reason we believe that you need to be baptized in the first place is because the bible records Jesus stating in John 3:5 "Verily verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God", so from that we know that we need to be baptized in the first place. If that isn't enough to convince us of how essential baptism is we can look into what every person recorded in the new testament did once they believed in Jesus Christ, and the answer is they were baptized. Just as important as it is to be baptized it also is important how you are baptized. In Matthew we have Jesus speaking to the disciples in what is commonly called the "great commission" and this is the place that we find Jesus commanding the disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." At first glance that would seem like we are to say those exact words; however, it is speaking of only "one" name, which is why the bible states in the name, and not names. If we look into prophecy we can go to the book of Zechariah and look at chapter 14 verse 9 which states "And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one." If there is any question into what that name was to be we can look to Acts Chapter 4 where Peter is speaking about Jesus and he states this in verse 12: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." We do follow that great commission but we actually baptize in the name he was referring to and that is Jesus. When he was speaking to his disciples they knew what that name was and what Jesus was instructing them to do. We know this because in the very first place after this happened we have Peter in Acts chapter 2 verse 38 telling the people what they must do to be saved, so what did he say? He said "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." If that isn't enough every where after this where people were baptized, they were baptized in the name of Jesus. There is not one place that we read in the New Testament where anyone baptized in the titles. The reason they didn't was because they were titles and Jesus didn't ask them to baptize in the titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but the Name of the Father, and the Name of the Son, and the Name of the Holy Ghost which is Jesus.

Using ourselves as examples my husband is a father, and he is a son, but his name is Jeff. The authority is in the Name of Jesus Christ and your name is a recognition of who you are. We believe in Jesus Christ and so we want to be recognized as being his; therefore, we are baptized in his name. A very good example to read in regards to this is Acts chapter 19 where Paul finding disciples said beginning in verse 2 "He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." Then what did they do? Verse 5 lets us know "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus". So as you can see from this it does matter into what name you are baptized. We also were at one time years ago baptized in the titles, but we could not deny the revelation the scripture gave to us that we needed to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so just as the scripture speaks in Acts 19 referenced above once we believed on Jesus Christ we were baptized in the name of Jesus and filled with the Holy Ghost.

It Feels Like Livin in the North with the South!!!!!

We are certainly not use to all this cold weather. It has been very cold today and the worse is yet to come,I believe that the high for tomorrow is only about 20 degrees and the wind chills are 0 to 5 degrees.With all this cold weather I have been trying to stay in and stay warm.So I decided to catch up on some sewing projects and just relax before going back to school on Monday. Kyle on the other hand ventured outside to try to make a small snowman with what little snow we have but unfortunately the snow was like powder, and Tanner wasn't worried about staying warm he was out to shoot basketball must have cabin fever(Tanner said it is mother fever he tries to be so funny). Oscar and JJ were fine and dandy with staying inside with me away from the cold air they don't really care for the snow either.I'm loving every minute of time at home and spending time with my boys.They really do grow up so fast. God bless and stay warm.