Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a recipe that I got from one of our MOPS mentor moms Rhonda Lehman. It has oatmeal, whole wheat and peanut butter (protein) so it is basically health food! ;) I have given a couple of people the recipe since she gave it to me so I decided that it would be easier if I just post it here.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups shortening
1 1/2 cups Peanut Butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups cooking oats
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

In mixing bowl cream shortening and peanut butter. Add brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Flatten with fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until slightly browned. Makes 4 dozen

It's a......

This first picture is a 3D picture that I took today of our sweet baby sucking on a thumb.
What a cutie!

This is a profile and hand where you can see all five fingers.

Last, but not least, the picture of our little GUY being proud to be a BOY!

I was going to post the video of us telling the kids, but the sound was not very good so I decided not to. Nate is happy because on his chart that we made for school it shows that there are now going to be more boys than girls in our family. :) We called all of the grandparents and let the kids tell them and this is exactly what Nate said every time, "The baby in my mommy's tummy is a boy and it's a brother for me and Adah." I think he would have been excited either way. Same with Adah, she doesn't fully get it so I don't think she care what it is! :)

We have picked out a first name but not a middle. The first name will be Josiah. We got this from a bible story that I like in 2 Kings chapter 22. You should read it. :) It is about a little boy that became king when he was only 8 years old and as is says in verse 2 "he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left."

Mommy is pregnant!

We decided to tell the kids that they are getting a little brother or sister today. I wanted to catch it on video because I figured whether they were excited or not it would probably be funny. Brace yourselves for loads of excitement... or not. ;)

"Cool Mom" That's all I got. I am not sure that they really believed me, but maybe when my tummy starts to grow it will sink in a little more. Also loved Nate's little shout out to his favorite girl Jade. When I asked it he wanted a boy baby or a girl baby he said "a girl like Jade." I think he would be satisfied if I just had Jade move in with us, but she wouldn't fit in the crib and I am pretty sure her family would miss her. ;)

Here is an 11 week ultrasound picture for your viewing pleasure! :)

Baby Number 3

So for those of you who don't know, we are expecting baby number 3 in March. We haven't told the kids yet so DON'T SPILL THE BEANS! :) We are going to tell them when I am 12 weeks along on Sept 9th during our family pizza and a movie night. I am going to video that to post for everyone to see their reactions. I am not sure if Adah will fully get it, but I think that Nate will be excited.

A couple weeks ago I heard Nate talking in bed. When I went and asked him if he was talking to me he said "No, I was talking to God." I said, "Oh yeah? What were you talking to God about?" His response made my mommy heart melt... "I was asking him to put a baby in your tummy." Little did he know God already had! It is hard not telling them, but doing ultrasound I have seen too many sad situations that mom's have had to explain to their little ones and that is just not somewhere that I want to go with the kids yet. I certainly did not regret having not told them when we lost a baby this past April, so even though I am DYING to tell them, I AM going to wait! :)

Another question you may have is why another baby and why now, especially when we are trying to get out of debt to follow the calling that we feel God has put on our hearts to go to work with FamilyLife. Well here are our reasons...

First, we love kids and wanted another one, so there! ;) Also, although we don't think everyone should have lots of babies, we feel that God has called us to raise the next generation of Christians. In Genesis 9:7, God told Adam and Eve "As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” Our desire for our kids is written in 2 John 1:4 "It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us." Think about how many kids are in Muslim families for example. I just feel that as a Christian I need to have more than the average 2 kids that most Americans have is so that there are more Christian influences in the next generation! Please don't take this as me saying ALL Christians need to have tons of kids. I think that if God wants someone to have more kids He will put that desire in THEIR hearts, if not then He won't. Also don't take this as me saying I am going to end up with a tv show called 19 kids and counting! I am thinking we will max out around 4, but who knows! ;)

As far as paying off debt and getting to FamilyLife goes, God is going to provide in HIS time and we have faith in that. Him blessing us with another baby is not going to put a roadblock in the way of His will. He always has a plan. Maybe it will be some miracle, or maybe a higher paying job for Thomas, or maybe it will truly take 4 or 5 years of hard work. Who knows? But PLEASE continue to pray with us about this matter!

Last but not least Psalms 127:4-5 says "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court." My mother-in-law told me that a quiver is 5 so that means we should have 5 kids, but then odd numbers aren't good so we should just have 6. ;) I'm not so sure we will get THAT high in numbers!

So, since I can't resist I have a series of ultrasound pictures for your viewing pleasure, if you can figure out what they are that is!

This is the gestational sac, no baby yet 4 weeks 5 days

The little white circle inside of the gestational sac is the yolk sac, still can't see baby yet 5wks 4 days

Yes that tiny white dot is the baby! 6wks 2days

This one is the yolk sac to the left growing baby next to it on the right. 6wks 6days

Getting bigger! 7wks 5days

So for those of you who don't know, we are expecting baby number 3 in March. We haven't told the kids yet so DON'T SPILL THE BEANS! :) We are going to tell them when I am 12 weeks along on Sept 9th during our family pizza and a movie night. I am going to video that to post for everyone to see their reactions. I am not sure if Adah will fully get it, but I think that Nate will be excited.

A couple weeks ago I heard Nate talking in bed. When I went and asked him if he was talking to me he said "No, I was talking to God." I said, "Oh yeah? What were you talking to God about?" His response made my mommy heart melt... "I was asking him to put a baby in your tummy." Little did he know God already had! It is hard not telling them, but doing ultrasound I have seen too many sad situations that mom's have had to explain to their little ones and that is just not somewhere that I want to go with the kids yet. I certainly did not regret having not told them when we lost a baby this past April, so even though I am DYING to tell them, I AM going to wait! :)

Another question you may have is why another baby and why now, especially when we are trying to get out of debt to follow the calling that we feel God has put on our hearts to go to work with FamilyLife. Well here are our reasons...

First, we love kids and wanted another one to there! ;) Also, although we don't think everyone should have lots of babies, we feel that God has called us to raise the next generation of Christians. Genesis 9:7 God told Adam and Eve
"As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
Our desire is written in 2 John 1:4 "It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us." Think about how many kids are in Muslim families for example. I just feel that as a Christian I need to have more than the average 2 kids that most Americans have is so that there are more Christian influences in the next generation! Please don't take this as me saying ALL Christians need to have tons of kids. I think that if God wants someone to have more kids He will put that desire in their hearts, if not then He won't. Also don't take this as me saying I am going to end up with a tv show called 19 kids and counting! I am thinking we will max out around 4, but who knows! ;)

As far as paying off debt and getting to FamilyLife goes, God is going to provide in HIS time and we have faith in that. Him blessing us with another baby is not going to put a roadblock in the way of His will. He always has a plan. Maybe it will be some miracle, or maybe a higher paying job for Thomas, or maybe it will truly take 4 or 5 years of hard work. Who knows?

Last but not least Psalms 127:4-5 says "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court." My mother-in-law told me that a quiver is 5 so that means we should have 5 kids, but then odd numbers aren't good so we should just have 6. ;) I'm not so sure we will get THAT high in numbers!

So, since I can't resist I have a series of ultrasound pictures for your viewing pleasure, if you can figure out what they are that is!

Video Blog!

So Thomas and I recently used out debit card points for a free video/still camera! It is cute and tiny, but it was FREE so the image quality is not fit for Hollywood or anything. Also, our living room is apparently too dark, I am feeling the need to buy some lamps after watching the videos! Anyway here are my 2 favorite videos so far (we haven't had it very long)

This first video shows of Adah's mad dancing skills. I think she is ready for one of those dancing reality shows... well if they get points for being adorable that is...



This one is a little shout out to Uncle Alan and Aunt Sarah who bought Nate some awesome Saxon Math school supplies. His favorite is probably the scale, but there is a scene in the movie Robots with dominoes that he loves. You know how you can set them up so that you knock one down and they knock each other down? He asked me to set them up to do this, which was no easy task with Adah around!

Funny Kid Pics

First of all, please forgive these pictures, they were taken on my phone because our camera was broken! We did just get a free video camera that also takes stills from debit card reward points (woohoo!) so hopefully the pictures will be better with that.

So, this first picture is my silly boy giving his stuffed giraffe a piggy back ride. He was so proud of himself for getting is strapped on his back. Such a goofball! :)

The story on this next picture is so adorable. We were grocery shopping and I picked out a watermelon. Adah wanted it to sit next to her. She then talked to, hugged, and kissed the watermelon until I was done shopping. It was her own little imaginary watermelon friend. I made sure she wasn't in the room when we chopped him up! ;)

This last one is a reminder of my childhood. :) One year for Christmas, my parents gave me this dome tent. I can't remember if I ever actually slept in it outside, but I do remember having it set up in our living room quite often. We had a day a while back that it was actually rainy off and on all day (a miracle!) so it was too nasty to play outside. I decided this was the perfect time to unveil my tent. The kids loved it. We even took a nap in it.

Photo Shoot

While the Cumming side of our family was together my in-laws wanted to hire a photographer to take some family pictures. I have two good friends who are photographers (see a like to Michaela Carpentar Photography to the right) were both in NYC on a mission trip! So luckily I had one more friend that I knew did photography so she got the job and did awesome! It was super hot, but after bribing Adah with ice cream, we got some great shots! My favorites of our family are here, along with a picture of some VERY happy grandparents with all three of their grandkids together for the first time.


If you ask Adah where she gets her pretties she says "from my mommy!" Also if you ask Nate where he gets his good looks he says "from my daddy!" :) They are trained well.

Happy Grandpa and Grammy with all three of their grandkids!

Meeting baby Charlie

We recently had a visit from Thomas's brother and his family. The kids were SO excited about seeing Uncle Alan and Aunt Sarah, AND meeting baby Charlie who was in Aunt Sarah's tummy when we went to visit them in NYC at Christmas. As you can see below, Charlie is just as adorable as we thought he would be :)


Adah is currently pretty baby obsessed. She has this purple stuffed bear that she pretends is her baby. It has been swaddled for about 2 months. I have to sneak the blanket away to wash it. So needless to say, she was VERY happy to have a REAL baby to play with. She loved "Baby Chawie" and I think she would have been happy to keep him, but alas, he had to go home. :( We had a great visit and can't wait to see them again!

Cars 2

I would just like to thank my sweet friend Michaela http://michiheart.blogspot.com/ for teaching me how to make my blog not so blah! Now that it is all cute, I am much more motivated to write blogs! So I thought I would write one about the kids first trip to the movie theater last weekend!
We took them to see Cars 2, which was really cute by the way. We had been talking about it for a couple of weeks and the week leading up to the big night was super exciting. Everyday we had to discuss how many more sleeps until the movie. "After we sleep tonight we will go to Ms. Kristyn's house, then mommy will pick you up after lunch, then we come home and take a nap, then we have small group, then we sleep again..." etc etc. Everyday at dinner we had this talk.
Friday morning at breakfast I said, "Hey Nate guess what tonight is?" His face lit up and he said, "Is it already time to go to the race?" AKA go see Cars 2. He was so excited, he apparently talked about it all morning at his babysitter's house and was super excited when I arrived to pick him up. They barely took a nap at all because they were so excited about the movie and of course popcorn.
When we walked in the theater Nate's eyes spread wide when he saw how big the "TV" was. To our happy surprise the Pixar short film before the movie was a Toy Story short film! 4 bathroom breaks and a huge bag of popcorn later, the kids had seen their first movie in the theater. Nate has been racing around the house like Lightening McQueen ever since. It was so much fun.

Here are pics of the kids on the way to the theater. It was too dark inside for a good picture on my phone and my real camera is broken :(

Weekend to Remember

This past weekend, Thomas and I were blessed to be a part of the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember that took place in the Woodlands. We have been to this conference twice, but never on this side of it. We were able to join the Houston team that helps with the conference and promoting it in Houston. Our main duty for the weekend was to pray.
I have always known that prayer is important and have even been a part of pray meetings before, but this was such a unique experience in seeing God work in people's lives. It also showed us just how impactful the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember is on marriages. One example really sticks out to me. We came across a prayer request from a girl whose husband had been in Iraq in the military and when he came home he told her that he didn't love her anymore. A little while later we received a prayer request from her husband which showed that in his heart he truly did want to work things out with his wife, he did not want to leave her. The next morning the women in the prayer room were given an opportunity to pray with any women at the conference who wanted to pray with us. Guess who came to pray with me?! The girl who had written the prayer request about her husband having been in Iraq! I listened to her for a few minutes and prayed with her and told her about FamilyLife's ementoring program. When I went back into the prayer room, I mentioned that it was her that I had prayed with. It turns out that one of the couples that had been in the prayer room with us has a ministry for soldiers who have come home from war and are now having a hard time in their marriage after all that they went through. So I got a business card and walked around until I found her!
She was really excited when I told her and I got to meet her husband at this point to. They had looked into counseling for him before through the VA clinics but had not had luck. They were happy to find one that was Christian based instead of someone who just wanted to give him antidepressants.
It was so amazing to see that example and many more of God changing people's hearts and giving them the desire to work hard to save their marriages!

We also had the opportunity to meet some amazing people. Mark and Michelle Ellis are one couple that we met that are missionaries with FamilyLife now. They were SO encouraging to us and gave us great advice. It was a blessing to us to see how much they cared about us and praying for us and helping us. Michelle even told me as I was leaving "I expect you to keep in touch" :) What a blessing God has given us in meeting this couple that I feel will become good friends and mentors.
Another couple we had the privilege of meeting is Scott and Fara Gray. They are from Houston and have just been invited to join the missionary staff at FamilyLife. They were also VERY encouraging because they too, like us, had to work their way out of debt before they could apply to work with FamilyLife. They gave us hope and encouragement that God won't call if He is not going to provide. Like Mark and Michelle, Scott and Fara were also full of good helpful advice for us. They are now begining their fundraising part of their journey. A prayer request for them is that they need $4000 before September, which is when they go for their initial training. After that they will come home to finish raising support. If you would like more information on Scott and Fara and how you can help them in their ministry please contact me.
So long story short... oh wait, this blog was SOOOOOO not short... ;) We had an amazing weekend and can't wait to see what God is going to do next. Keep reading, I have set a goal that by the fall I am going to start blogging once a week. Don't worry, they won't always be this long!

http://www.familylife.com/site/c.dnJHKLNnFoG/b.5974619/k.1D5/FamilyLife_eMentoring_is_an_online_mentoring_community.htm?fromhp=eMentorbox