Tulip Girl

One thing I love about having very new Christians and non Christians alike around me is their very different perspective. I think something happens the longer we are Christians; that we stop looking for the right answer to very important questions. Instead of really trying to get to the core of how we are supposed to treat sinners who are committing adultery, homosexuality or idolatry, we just ignore the sin and don't bring up Jesus. All the sticky subjects get forgotten and we just hope we don't come across any body we have to confront and if we do we simply avoid them. After all how many gay friends do you have and how many friends do you know who are struggling with say pornography ? I can tell you I don't have a friend who is gay and if any body struggles with pornography , they certainly haven't told me about it. Well, last week in Sunday school a new Christian had joined us. When he asked about the difference between accountability and being judgemental w...

Sarah has her first two teeth coming in on the bottom. The little white tips are visible just underneath the skin. How exciting! So far this process seems to be going pretty easy on her. She is a little more irritable by the end of the day but so far so good. Well, and she is a lot more slobbery and spitty, but it isn't has upsetting to her as I thought it would be so... so far we're good.

I have renewed the follower list. Sorry I deleted it. I just was having a hard time with somethings last week and well, I was feeling a bit like the followers list can be sort of a popularity gauge sometimes. I consider it more of a blogging buddy list. Anyway, sorry about that, got a little overzealous and a bit self righteous I think. :( If you still would like to be my blogger buddy, then by all means, I welcome you. :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've been really trying to get deep into God's word lately. There are a few things I want to know more about like right now, Jeremiah 'cause we are studying him in Sunday School, God's call for me as a follower of Him because I feel Him calling me towards something but my heart feels a bit like Jonah; trembling at the thought of it, and also a new concept that has been forming in my head. A fresh truth for me about Jeremiah is that he struggled for a good part of his ministry with God's call to serve ...

I don't normally like to complain on my blog, but I have found something worth complaining about. That horror movie, The Orphan. Seriously? Seriously? To you all who made that stupid movie, the rest of us were wondering what were you thinking? Why with the state of the world being as it is, with so many children out there who need a good home (I worked in the juvenile court system, believe me you don't need to go to Guatamala or China to find a child), why make a movie to possibly stigmatize adopting in the eyes of prospective adoptive families like they did for clowns in It? I can't even stand seeing the trailers for that movie (all-be-it, the trailers may contain the only thirty seconds of scary scenes, thats been known to happen to more than one movie). I have tons and tons of admiration for every person who has adopted a child, many of the most amazing people I know were adopted and its a big leap of faith feuled by enormous loving hearts of prospective and existi...

I have been remiss. I promised my friend Natalie I would make sure there is a post for her to read every morning for the next week while she finishes her job and begins her awesome season of being a stay at home mom. I remember being in a place where I was burned out and ready to leave my place of work. Its tough not only if there isn't an end in sight but even tougher to stay engaged when you are only days away from the end. Natalie I won't fail you again! ;) I am very aware of how blessed I am to be able to stay home with Ms. Wiggles. I know financially this is just not possible for a lot of moms. I talked to my SIL , Julie last night and as we both love blogging, it would be so awesome to be payed to blog. I know Julie wants more than anything to be home with her children and that would just be an awesome way to be able to do something she loves and get paid to do it and it all pretty much is centered around her family. I've always dreamed of being a writer, so I...

I could call this This and That Thursday but well, maybe next week. Or not 'cause I do a lot of writing about just this and that. Anyway, I babble. I am so thankful for my family. I don't know why I got blessed with them, but I did and so no complaining I'm just very thankful. Felt Sarah's first tooth coming in this morning. Cool. Sarah also rolled over for the first time this morning. Ubber ubber cool! I'm thankful it is raining a lot lately so I don't have to water the lawn. I'm thankful for the blogger community. You rock! I'm thankful I'm not pregnant. I'm thankful for this experience of trying to sell the house and all the crazy stuff that comes with it because it is helping me to really appreciate other things more. That and I have to keep my house clean and that isn't always a tendency of mine. ;)

I have fallen in love. I never thought this would happen to me. Wow and to realize this dream might just be the most stinkin' cool thing in the world. I of all people in the world have fallen in love with a Viking Range. This Viking Range is a gas stove and electric oven. To check out where I found this gorgeous beast, click on The Bare Foot Contessa's Kitchen in my Link of the Day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Speaking of the Bare Foot Contessa's kitchen, right now, kitchen remodeling is what consumes the majority of my day dreams. I love her white cabinets and charcoal granite slab counters. Another detail are the open upper cabinets. We have a house in mind in Newport News and if it happens we get this house, I just might have one or two doorless cabinets. Along with that, I may cooridinate a tile back splash that coordinates with matching bowls. So, to have my dream kitchen I would have to buy new dishes and mixing bowls to display. Ummmh, that new k...

The answer is that it depends on my attitude as it is with all of life...um bummer. I was hoping for extra. The attitude thing though, God cares much more about our heart when we do what we do than what we do. I can feed a homeless man and if my attitude is an open heart and broken spirit then our Heavenly Father sees that. If I do it 'cause I'm trying to feel good about myself or for community service 'cause I broke the law, well anyway, God sees that too. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I made spaghetti for dinner. I have been loving adding red wine vinegar to my meet while cooking. Well, I decided on a whim to add a little cinnamon and you know what? It was super good. I didn't tell Dan and gave him a taste and he loved it. Awesome. I am growing more in love with experimenting in the kitchen. You know, its an outlet at the end of the day. While Dan puts Sarah down for a nap, I can go cook something up. I have a lemon pepper salmon I put poppy seed dre...

Last night I had a very interesting dream that had quite a bit of meaning. I dreamed that Dan and I moved into a house that had a room we hadn't used accept to store odds and ends for the two weeks we lived there. Our pastor, Todd, needed an office because it was super cold and the church didn't have a heater. I wanted to offer him our office but knew that it would be kinda awkward him being in the house with me there all day. So I went to the door to this unused part of the house and when I opened it there was this whole other part of the house I had forgotten was there. The room was big with two sets of french doors, hard wood floors, lots of windows and a fire place. One set of doors went to another room with the fire place and the other went into a small backyard with a garden, a putting (sp?) green and a coy pond loaded with large coy. There were neighbors who were super friendly too. Since those rooms were only assesable by one door to the house along with the backy...

Today, five years ago, I married my best friend. I don't know how I did it, I dated a string of...well lets so none of them were marriage material...for me anyway. Interestingly enough, the officiating pastor wrote July 18 instead of 17 so its okay we are renewing tomorrow 'cause I guess legally thats the day it was done. We probably should have had that fixed but well it's our memory so we left it that way. Awesome things about my hubby: 1. He is really handy around he house; building furniture, laying tile, putting in new light fixtures, taking care of the lawn. Amazing really. 2. He cooks great fried chicken and brocolli casserole. He shares my never ending love of pizza too. 3. He started practicing funny voices while I was pregnant so he would be ready. 4. Bedtime is daddy time with his Ms. Wiggles (his nickname for Sarah). 5. He is the one to have initiated nicknames ie, he is super mushy. There you go, five for every year we have been married. I thank God f...

So post pregnancy hair loss is apprently caused by tired follicles. A one minute google search helped me learn that our head has a certain percentage of resting follicles which means they are empty. Women lose on average 100 hairs a day. While pregnant estrogen levels forces more hairs to delay going into their resting period so we have thicker hair and less fallout. When estrogen levels drop after pregnancy all those follicles that were waiting to rest during pregnancy all take their vacation at one time. My hair right now is so thin I can see the difference so if anyone can recommend a great volumizer while I wait for my follicles to get back to work, I would greatly appreciate it.

I have some great blogs I love like my sister Michelle's , my SIL Laura's and all the blogger buddies I've made. I have a new blogger buddy I am totally excited about, my SIL Julie . Julie has a great blogging style that always gives me a smile. Her take on parenting her toddler and tween is so refreshing and encouraging to me. Being the mom of a five month old, I can see what I have to look forward to. I encourage you to hop on over to Julie's blog, Reading Be Tween the Lines . You will most certainly not be dissapointed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It has been three years since I've been on birth control and I have to say, I'm not a fan. Remembering those stupid little pills is stinkin' annoying. Why isn't there one for men? Seriously! With my being sick and then Sarah sick and thus forgetting some pills, I am now officially on the "Oh please don't let me be pregnant" wait. I knew I was pregnant the last two times because...

Dan and I are renewing our vows this weekend. How exciting is that? We bought new wedding bands. The whole thing is kinda impromptu but we are quite excited. Our pastor will be there and so will some friends. Afterwards we are going to Carabas. Super cool. I am quite excited. I do have to admit I had a hard time picking a venue... umh out of laziness or something. My pastor, Todd picked a place and booked it for us. I so owe him for that and understand better now why my mom felt she needed to be so in charge of getting stuff done. Uhh, sorry mom. I will tell you all about it and post pictures. I also want to add that in case you all didn't know, I am a terrible speller and I know it. So if you read my blog and ever think I need to get some lessons in spelling and maybe grammer or punctuation, yeah, I know. Sorry about that two. ;)

Wow, what a great weekend. Dan, Sarah and I went Gloucester to see some friends and their new baby boy. He is so tiny, two pounds lighter than Sarah when she was born plus being a week old and breast fed, he was even lighter than that. I was excited he took to eating better than Sarah. Erin and Manny are great parents and great friends. There were also two friends in from California I was excited to see. Two great ladies who drove cross country for their summer vacation. It was so nice to see everyone. We also had some friends over for dinner last night. Our friends, Jan and Kevin are some of the best people I know to get into really meaty conversations about religion, theology, politics, sociollogy and psychollogy and world views as well. I always come away learning more things and with a fresh perspective. Tonight we will finish up the tile by grouting the tile in the dining area. I love our house and how the eat in kitchen area and dining room are combined. Its a great ...

When I heard of hair loss after pregnancy, I didn't realize how seriously true that was. I can feel how thin my hair is in comparison to only a week ago. Its rediculous how much hair I pull out of my head just running my hands through it. Crazy wierd. In other news, Dan is tilling the kitchen and I am doing the grout. You read that right I am doing the grout. I am pretty good at it too. Its tedious but quite gratifying. We are hoping it will help our house sell. After the tile, Dan is going to make cabinet doors. He is so handy. I love it. I really hope the house sells sooner than that though because we have a house we have picked out and I can't wait to get to work on that one. It needs the kitchen and upstairs bathrooms remodled. Actually, the upstairs bathrooms need to be gutted and started from scratch. Hampton has an awesome ReStore, a store owned by Habitat for Humanity. A lot of different places, construction companies, remodeling companies, and those guys...

Apparently Sarah's bath time last night was a family event. Daddy came to keep us company (insisting while he was there that I keep Sarah's "Nether Regions" covered with a washcloth.) Leo also decided to get in on it...literally. I had to keep him away from Sarah's bath water while I got her ready to take her bath. He didn't want to get in the water but he did want to drink it. He does however like to lay in the my shower when Dan or I are done with it. Wierd how that cat loves bathtubs. He also has taken quite nicely to Sarah. Good thing.

I am stoked Dan has a three day weekend. We are thinking of doing some tweeking around the house to make it more appealing. We are also going tomorrow to buy new wedding bands. There is a showing tomorrow so of course we are praying they are the one. The house we want to move to has a family in it that really needs to get out from under it. We are praying they can get out of their house as they need to get out more so than we do. I am absolutely in love with pineapple. Random fact I know, but I had to write that down. This weekend and then over the next week I am going to take a break from blogging. I've been going 60 miles an hour lately and feel that I need a bit of a break from blogging and the like. I hope you all have a wonderful fourth of July. we are going to celebrate with bubbles and glow sticks from target. Wiggles has her own patriotic shirt and I have flip flops. Will be back soon.