Oh to the Land of School-Work !!

Today has been a full day of school work....I have two classes this first eight weeks and they are both busy classes. I have a workbook to finish after watching a series of DVD clips concerning counseling sessions and then I still have my work in my other class to finish before leaving out Saturday. Last time I went to Liberty I needed that breath of fresh air...this time I am a little more anxious because i don't want to leave them again so soon. Well I know this is rather short but I need to finish school work. So my Research Methods and Statistics books are awaiting my fingers to open their pages.

My nephew Matthew is a soldier in the United States Marine Corps and is in Haiti helping with relief efforts at this time. I would ask you to please say a special prayer for him and his unit and my sister & bother-in-law.

Until Next Time

Anticipation

Have you ever had something so wonderful going on and your so excited about it however it must be kept in confidence and just prayed over.. Well that is me and my family..It has been a long time since I have posted anything on here but Life has been full of many things going on.. Since my last post I have had the opportunity to go back to school. For some time I have felt God pulling me into the Counseling profession and this month I have just started my second year in the Graduate Program @ Liberty University. This past year was filled with many wonderful memories of my twins learning to walk, Landon starting Kindergarten, my husband finishing one degree and going back to finish his Master's. Our family has been through some valleys over the past eleven years but this year God has really showed up and blessed us.

I have enjoyed helping my husband @ church and preparing for musical productions and special services. We watched our oldest daughter dance her first real ballet "DON QUIXOTE" this summer and see how talented she is in dance. We got to see her get saved and baptized in water, make new friendships @ her new school and grow into a wonderful big sister, who loves to help with her younger siblings and spend special time reading the bible with me at night. She and I decided that this year we would work together and try to read the bible through together. It makes me so excited to see her reading and learning at such a small age and see God's word come alive in her life.

My son Landon turned five years old and started Kindergarten. He loves school and is doing so good. He is already reading small books and loves doing homework...! I'm sure that will change as the year progresses....He has lost his first two teeth on bottom and got to move up to the big kids church so he thinks he is a big boy now. He is learning to help with his baby brother and sister and is becoming a big help and learning how to take care and do fun things with them. He is very caring and protective of them both and it's nice to see him spending extra special time with his baby brother playing cars or army men while building castles and forts out of Legos.

Lexi and Zander have spent this past year learning to walk, run around the house, and now speak in plain talk (at least I can understand). They spend countless hours with me at home during the week while Kate and Landon are at school and usually do pretty good. Here lately, they have started aggrivating each other some but find their way through it to start playing again in seconds. I just took them for their two year old check up and they are both growing well and very healthy. It is amazing to me that i had them both in my tummy at some point and that two totally different people could have been born at the same time.

Well as for me and Zach, this has been the best year of our life thus far. We have finally began to see light at the end of long tunnels. We are finally understanding that God's timing and ways are better than the ones we tried to create for ourselves and can see how much better things work out when he is given the ability to do things for us instead of us trying to figure things out on our own. I am utterly amazed @ how much God loves us and how much he shows me daily his grace and mercy are real. I feel so blessed for such sweet friends here in georgia and I am so excited about what God is doing in our lives @ this point and anticipating the future that he is leading us into. I am going to try to keep this up and going now so that i can share with our family and friends this exciting journey towards the MARK !!

Trip to visit family in Bama

We went to visit our family in Alabama last weekend. The kids had such a great time playing with their cousins and grandparents. We spent one day at their great grandparents house out in the country which the kids think is awesome, since we live in the city. It was such a beautiful day that the kids got to ride "sugarbaby" the horse which they loved so much. It is so nice getting to spend a little time with our families since we live away from all of them. This is only the 3rd time our families have gotten to spend time with the kids this year except my parents who travel to see us every couple of months or so. It was so nice not to have a schedule of things to do but just sit outside on the porch swing and watch the kids play and enjoy such a beautiful day that God created. It reminded me of how busy we let life get and how many precious little moments we miss by staying so busy. After this weekend we painted this little saying on our wall. I think it is so true..!!

Patriotic Service

This is my husband leading worship and addressing the congregation.

My husband wanted to do something different this year to honor our civil service and military. The traditional time is usually done in July but where we live many people go away on vacation so he decided to do it in September. It was a very worshipful program with songs to honor our men and women who protect and serve us locally and overseas but most importantly with many songs to our almighty protector, Jesus Christ. We were able to have the local honor guard to perform the colors ceremony and a representative from each branch carry the service flags as we payed honor to those who served or currently serve in our military. It was a proud moment for my husband when the Marine flag went by and for me as his wife seeing him stand with such honor. It is even more meaningful knowing what he does on a daily basis pays honor and respect to our Lord and Savior by serving in the ministry. Over the past 9 years we have served as youth choir directors, part-time choir directors, and for the past 6 years he has held a position as a full-time Worship Pastor. It really makes me so thankful to know how God has truly blessed me with such a wonderful husband. 8 years ago we let our daughter then only a few months old stay with her grandparents and me and my husband went out for what I thought was a romantic dinner. I will never forget when he told me God had called him to preach and he begin to tell me all about the things that God has showed him and we begin to put pieces together the way WE thought that it would work out. I can honestly say that what we thought then was not exactly the way things have gone. We felt that someday we would be involved with the military again but I never knew the tests and trials we would go through to get here. We have made so many friends and had the opportunity to live in a few different places which I feel has prepared me for this new adventure we are about to start. Most people don't understand how we can love and enjoy this journey of what they see as an insecure life but I believe as long as we are where God leads us we are in the most secure place of all the Hands of God ! We are working hard to fulfill the calling God has placed on our lives. I can't say that the scary thoughts associated with the military again don't cross my mind but then I have to remember all the people who need us especially our soldiers. We are still in the beginning stages of this process but I feel so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful journey together with the love of my life, raising our four wonderful children and teaching them what it truly means to serve and follow God. I look forward to talking with other women who are a part of this journey too serving God and country as Chaplains wives.

Kate's 8th Birthday

This last Friday night I had 8 little girls over for Kate's Birthday Party and woah was I exhausted when they left....We have always had a party for all our friends and family but our closest relatives live over 3 hours away now so we let Kate decide what she wanted. We had a spa party- we did nails , make-up, hair and all kinds of pampering stuff like hand wax treatments and foot bath massages. It was so funny to see them all dolled up. They had so much energy to just dance around and be silly with little or no worries on their little minds (which is how I think it should be). Those girls downed three pizzas, chips, cake and popcorn like they had an empty storage room in their little tummies... She had so much fun and when present time came she opened the High School Musical Wii game from her Dad and I and that was it. We ALL had to take turns playing that for the remainder of the party day. Those girls screamed and danced and sang their little hearts out for hours. When darkness begin to fall outside so did the noise as the girls parents begin to pick them up one by one and my little birthday princess crashed on the couch within minutes. This was a wonderful day and the joy it brought my daughter was worth it all. Happy Birthday Katiebug !

I am the mother of four beautiful children and the wife of the most wonderful man. I taught school till I had our second child and then went to work for the Juvenile Court System. I have been a stay at home mommy now for the past year since I was pregnant with our twins and love every minute of it. I decided to keep our 4 year old home and not send him to preschool so that I would have the chance to spend some quality time with him before he starts school next year. Our oldest is in 2Nd grade and my twins are almost 9 months now. My husband and I have been in full time ministry for the past 8 1/2 years and are working towards finishing our masters degrees at this time. My husband has a year of seminary behind him and about 2 to go before he is ready to graduate. Due to me being pregnant my husband had to take some time off of school to work more to allow me to stay home during the remainder of my pregnancy. My husband was in the Marines when we married but we grew up together and attended school k-12 together. We have been through a lot over the past few years together which makes us stronger and our love for each other run deeper. We are working towards his commissioning in the Navy Chaplaincy and really excited to continue ministry together. I am working on finishing my Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Counciling and know this will be a great plus to help with my husband being a Chaplain. We really feel this is the direction and path that God has been preparing us for. The lessons we have learned, the joys and trials, were not in vain but tests to prune and make us who God needs us to be in order for him to get the glory. Tonight we got our heads full of information and it has been a lot all at once to take in. I really thought this would be a good place to talk with other women who are currently serving as soliders or spouses and understand what the road ahead for me looks like. I always wished that someone would have taken the time to explain how to make it through my first day of teaching school and taught me all the little tricks or ways to make things better or easier to understand. I pray that this blog will put me in touch with other women who understand and share my thoughts and fears that come as working in one of the largest missionary fields with my husband as a Military Chaplain's Wife.