Taa Dahhh!!!

I absolutely love my new blog design from Lindsey over at SplatDesigns! Go check her out! She was very accommodating to my ideas and did an incredible job! I am so happy with my new look!

Wordless Wednesday

Neice Breah wanted to share and & Mya wasn't opposed!

Day 9

Day Nine:
"...be swift to hear, slow to speak..." James 1:19b

We are often so busy speaking that we don't take time to listen. We are so quick to offer a comment - negative or positive - that we don't really "hear" our husband's heart. Remember: we have two ears and only one mouth. We need to listen more!

As you continue in your 30-day challenge, not speaking negatively and focusing on positive encouragement, hear the Lord's admonition today: "Be swift to hear."

If listening is a real problem for you, play a game with yourself. See if you can listen to your husband for one whole day, only speaking when asked a question. If your husband notices the difference, explain that you are learning to listen more-not only to God, but also to him.

For those of you who know me, this whole listening thing could be a problem sometimes. I have so much to say and lots of opinions. It is my prayer that I can take this days challenge and practice, practice, practice! Brandon is similar in that he has lots to say and lots of ideas as well. He has so much to say and so many new ideas that I sometimes downplay some of them. I can definetly get better at not doing this. My prayer is that I can become more of a listener and encourager. I pray that I can stay away from always looking for the bad in things. My prayer is that I can become more trusting of Brandon and his decision making and that we will seek Christ in all decisions that are to be made for our family.

Day Seven:
"Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!...for riches certainly make themselves wings..." Prov. 23:4-5
"That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth, that I may fill their treasuries." Proverbs 8:21

Money is the root of much marital discord. Ask yourself, "Am I being negative toward my husband in the area of finances?" Determine not to speak evil of your husband in this area. Discover ways to encourage and help him instead.

Does your husband handle finances wisely? Does he make good financial investments, based on biblical principles? Does he have a budget? Does he make wise decisions about purchases - checking many sources before he buys? Is he a good steward of his money before the Lord? Let him know how much you appreciate his strengths in financial matters.

Day Eight:
How are you doing with the "30-Day Encouragement Challenge"? In case you've forgotten, here's the challenge:

* You can't say anything negative about your husband ...to your husband...or to anyone else, about your husband.
* Say something that you admire or appreciate about your husband...to your husband...and to someone else, about your husband!

"...but who can find a faithful man?" Prov. 20:6b

Faithfulness is a wonderful but rare quality today, especially in regard to marriage. Do you understand how important this quality is? Your challenge is to continue to root out all negative speaking, and plant seeds of encouragement instead. You may be amazed at what will grow.

An instant family...only temporarily : )

Well today has been an adventure. Brandon started feeling better last
night. Today we have had 3 kiddos with us since this afternoon and will
have them until tomorrow evening. I have an 8 yr. old sister and we
have started keeping the niece(4) and nephew(2.5months )every other
Saturday & Sunday. Brandon likes to say that we are practicing on
other peoples kids. It can't hurt! It is fun to us. We enjoy the time
we spend with my little sis and our niece and nephew. The nephew is
only 2.5 months old. His mom says he sleeps through the night so we
will see how this night goes. We plan to get up in the morning get
everybody some waffles, get them dressed, hair done, and all ready for
church by 8:30am. It can't be too hard can it? I will definitely let you
know how it goes! I got the niece and nephew a few church outfits a
piece. I bought everything on sale and I am so proud of my choices. I
willdefinitely post a picture of that tomorrow. I am rather proud of my inexpensive church clothes choices. I tryed
an outfit on each of them and they fit and match. I think that clothes
buying is going to be one of my favorite parts of having a baby. Of
course it will come after several other important things like, the
unconditional love and excitement they will bring to my life!Anywho, that has been our day. I will definitely have a post for tomorrow too!

Day Six:
"...whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10:31b

Do
you recognize and appreciate your husband's creativity? Or do you
criticize and demean his efforts? Instead of negativity, determine to
be positive. Perhaps you can help your husband see that his efforts are
an opportunity to glorify God.

Our Valentines date...not exactly as planned

Mine and Brandon's Valentines celebration was planned for this evening. We were going to go to Fuji, a hibachi grill, and then come home and spend time with one another. I was in charge of dinner and Brandon romance! Our plans totally flopped. Wanna know why? Brandon caught a stomach bug. Poor thing, he was up all night
trying to "get rid" of the bug. He spent all of today doing the same.
Brandon,definitely was not up for food and as for the romance, well,
let's just say, I do not want that bug. I did manage to have a great
day myself. I had decided to take off before I knew about the bug. I
stayed around the house for a little bit this morning. My sister
and I went shopping the rest of the day. It has been a while since I
have done that...the all day shopping thing that is. I did not get much for
myself but I did take care of some much needed niece and nephew items
and husband things. My sister and I had a great time.

Brandon and I plan to spend the rest of the evening here on the couch. He had
chicken noodle and I had cheerios. Not exactly the hibachi grill but as long as we are together.

I had planned on placing Brandon's gifts in places where he would find them
all throughout the day. They were small things with a poem that
referenced us or him, and each item played a part in the poem too. I
think I may have had more fun putting it together than Brandon did
receiving the gifts. I ended up giving him the whole pile of things to
open while I was gone today. He said he enjoyed them. Brandon's gift to
me is a new blog template purchase from Lindsay. She is
working so hard on it and I am so impressed. I can not wait until
everyone is able to see the whole thing completed! It should not be
long.

30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge

Day 4

"...let him labor, working with his hands what is good..." Eph. 4:28

We
are all accountable for the things we say, both negative and positive
words. Have you embraced the challenge to speak only positive things to
your husband and to others about him? Here's a suggestion that touches
the core of your husband's world.

Some women take their
husband's career for granted, and they show it in many ways. Do you
"dump" on your husband at the end of the workday, or do you strengthen
and encourage him with your words? A wise wife will make her husband
feel that she values and appreciates his work. Let him know that you
are glad he is a hard worker. Take opportunities to praise his
diligence and resourcefulness to others.

Day 5
Let
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good
for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers."Eph. 4:29

Another
way to describe the positive side of this "30-Day Encouragement
Challenge" is by using the word "edify," which means, "to build up."
Negative comments only discourage and tear down. Positive comments
encourage and build.

Do you edify your husband before others,
adding to his value in their eyes? This is especially important to
other family members.

Do you praise your husband to his
relatives, and yours? Does your husband's mother know how much you love
him? How about your dad? Perhaps you can drop a word of praise into a
conversation or letter. Be creative in letting your relatives know that
you respect your husband, love him, and support him - in spite of
whatever flaws and weaknesses he may have.

Rose are Red Violets are blue, We had a fabulous Valentines, How about you?

DAY 3 of the Husband Encouragement Challenge

Day 3

"...love suffers long, and is kind..." 1 Cor. 13:4
"And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19

Love indeed suffers long and is kind. As you consider your Encouragement Challenge, determine today that you will not say anything negative to or about your husband. Speak kindly to him with words of genuine encouragement.

Since today is Valentines, It may not be too hard to follow this days challenge. After all, it is the day for sweet nothings and lots of love! It will just be one more day to practice. Practice makes perfect right? Well maybe not perfect but each day that I take this challenge on I get closer to making these actions habit!

***For the specifics on the challenge look here

Hey good lookin...what ya got cookin??

Day 2 (this is in reference to yesterday)

"...through love serve one another." Gal. 5:13b

Today, find some way that your husband is serving you or your family. Does he help around the house? Take care of the car? Fix things that are broken?

Today was a great day. On Tuesday's, we have started keeping our niece and nephew Breah & Colton during the evening.

We decided to throw a special Valentines dinner, mainly for the benefit of 4yr. old Breah. My little sisters got to come to so I think that we made it a little special for them as well. Everyone wore red, pink, or white and we had baked ziti for dinner. We had candles and flowers and lots of love!! I plan to post a couple of pictures this evening. Even Mya, the dog, got into the spirit.

Brandon was such a trooper he fully participated! From picking out gifts for Breah and her mom to keeping everyone occupied while I got dinner taken care of. He wore his red Christmas sweater and even helped Breah set the table and make the place mats. They painted a piece of over sized construction paper for each guest in order to make the place mats. It was so fun. We really wanted to do something special for Breah for Valentines. I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

The most wonderful part of my evening was coming to the realization that Brandon is going to be an awesome Daddy one day! : )

So glad he chose me..

Day 1

It was pretty good. To make sure that everyone is aware of the goal of the 30 day Husband Encouragement Challenge, I am going to post the 2 most important rules for this 30 day challenge.

For these 30 days...

1. You can not say anything negative about your husband... to your husband... or to anyone else, about your husband.

2. You must say something that you admire or appreciate about your husband...to your husband...or to anyone else about your husband.

"The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the day of her life. " Proverbs 31:11-12

Today's challenge was to let your husband know that you are truly glad he chose you. How often do I think, what if? What if he had chosen his previous girlfriend? What if we had not worked out and he had found someone after me? I do not think about it enough. This thought really does just make me so very thankful. Our lives would be so different right now. I really could not imagine life without Brandon and I do not want to.

I am so thankful that he chose me! I let him know this early this morning as we got ready for work. His response was, "I am glad you chose me to." It is so easy for me to get hung up on the little things that he does that might aggravate me. I hope that this challenge will help me to make it a habit to get hung up on the so MANY things that he does do "right".


That is all for now! It is time for me to get to making some homemade valentines for everyone at work! The homemade ones are actually going to turn out to be less expensive since I had most of the goods. They will also be much more heartfelt don't ya think?

Lazy Days

Alrighty... This weekend has been so great. We have had a lazy weekend. We did not do anything that we did not want to. We slept in Saturday and Sunday. Yes, we skipped church. For purposes other than vacation or going to church with family, this was the first time in probably a year. We just enjoyed each other and some rest. This is definitely something we could stand to do a little more often. ( not the skipping church part...I was just so exhausted) We did manage to go out to a movie and dinner last night. We also went to the greenway, a trail that goes throughout our town here, and got some exercise in. We ran 4 miles today. We are thinking about training for the 1/2 marathon at the end of April. We will have to see how it goes. While we were running we found a Bark Park. Ever heard of it? It is actually a little park for dogs. You just take your dog right in and let them off of their leash. I was really nervous. Mya is such a passive dog and there were some big and mean looking dogs running around in there. She did really well though. It would seem she was enjoying the other dogs owners more than the other dogs. She was just running from person to person trying to get as much attention as possible. It was not surprising to us. She had fun though. I think we will go back.

Update in the 30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. You can go here to see the whole 30 days and how it will work. I will start with Day 1 tomorrow. I will definitely post my progress.

I better get off of here. Our neighbors are coming over for the usual Sunday night dinner and Desperate Housewives extravaganza.

2 New Commitments!!

Hi All! I really do not think I have many people reading this, if any! I hope to be able to change that soon. I have 2 commitments I want to make to myself and the future readers out there ; )

1. I want to post here at least 4 times monthly!! I hope to join in on some of the Wordless Wednesday's and the Thursday Thirteen to help with that. I also hope to have a new blog design up and going soon. The purchase of this should help keep me motivated. I have found a 30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge over at reviveourhearts.com that I hope to start in the next couple of days. With the start of this challenge, I am going to try and post my progress and get some input from future readers. I am going to start posting comments on other pages and hopefully that will link some over here! I do a lot of reading and I want to post, I just have not done it yet!

2. The 30 Day Husband Encouragement Challenge
I mentioned this above and I do not have all of the details yet but I hope to keep this going the whole 30 days. With this process, I hope to post my progress and possibly encourage others to give it a shot. More info to come on this very soon. I am going to try to post a link to the challenge and I am going to post the details of my 30 day adventure. My hearts desire is truly to be a wonderful wife. I have been married over a year now and being a FABULOUS wife is not as easy I thought it would be! It is hard work, but I love B so much and am willing to put in 100%. I think this challenge is going to be a good motivator and this blog will hold me accountable (especially since I am commited now)!!!

Up to the commitments,
April