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

Family Life Journey

About a week ago, I was sharing with some friends about our journey. I was fortunate to be introduced to a contact who worked with Family Life for 9 years. I had a great conversation with this person regarding the call to Family Life versus the emotional experience of a "Weekend to Remember". Accorrding to this person, if God has called you to this ministry then you can not be talked out of it. You will react in a way that would indicate that not following through with Family Life would be an act of disobedience to God. On the positive side, he mentioned that God already has the funds ready for those He has called. He closed by reassuring me that moving to Little Rock and working with Family Life was the best decision he had ever made.

With this in my mind, Jamie and I talked and our thoughts are unwaivered regarding going to Little Rock. We found out the time table is longer than we originally thought. God is on our side and we are resolute to obey His call.

Thomas and Jamie

Family Life Journey

Together Thomas and I are going to share our “Family Life” story. As we continue through this process I will do my best to post updates. To fully explain where we are now, we have to go back about 5 years….

Thomas:
About 5 years ago, Jamie and I went to a marriage conference called “Weekend to Remember” with some friends thinking we would be getting a little refresher to our marriage. Little did we know the seeds that would be planted and the direction God would lead us. We had a great time and I know that we learned a lot and turned a new leaf in our marriage. Towards the end of the conference, they announced that they would have a meeting to go over the ministry of family life if anyone was interested in becoming a missionary and working with Family Life. At that moment, I felt God tell me to go to the meeting. Shortly after that session, we were given a time as a couple to talk. During this session, I told Jamie that I felt like I was being led to go into the ministry with Family Life. We went to the meeting and that is where our journey began.

Jamie:
Although not interested in EVER moving away from Tyler I could tell that Thomas felt VERY strongly that God was calling him to do this. Being the planner that I am (and used to be even more so) I was not thrilled that God was changing my “perfect plan” that I already had. I did my best to put my heart into it and found that I was a little bit excited about going on this new adventure with my husband. So we began the process by filling out the paperwork. Soon after we did a phone interview and ended up being invited to Little Rock, Arkansas to interview in person at Family Life. This was the final step before we said an absolute yes and began fundraising…

Thomas:
At that time, we either got cold feet or Satan worked his way into our minds. We decided to stop the process with Family Life. We did continue on serving in church in many different capacities over the next several years and recently started up a small group in our current church.

Jamie:
I was scared. I had never lived more than an hour away from my parents and I knew that missionaries don’t make a lot of money (the thought of asking people to support us made me nauseated). I had just finished ultrasound school and was told that I wouldn’t be able to have an ultrasound job. So to sum that up, I was selfish. I used the ministries that we were getting involved in at our own church as my reason. Maybe God simply wanted us to be willing to serve him. We could do that at our own church, where we were already comfortable, right?

Thomas:
Since then we have had several issues revolving around my job that had always made me think I was like Jonah. I prayed countless times and spent time diligently seeking Him for guidance. I internally fought my battle thinking I had missed my call in life and I was doomed to a life of turmoil. At times I even felt like God had turned His back on me.

Jamie:
I found a job I was happy with and began my perfect plan: buy a house, have a baby, when that one turns a year old get started on the next one! J Right before I found out that I was pregnant with Adah is when all of the turmoil with Thomas’s career began. Ten days after she was born I found us moving to Houston for Thomas’s job.

Thomas:
Fast forward, Jamie and I are in Houston. We are currently going through the worst two years of our lives in dealing with loss of multiple jobs and the stress of financial burden of being out of work. I had recently found some stability in the workplace as I had become a medical device distributor. It is still a huge uphill battle with a lot of discouragement.

Jamie:
Here we are in Houston and having such a hard couple of years. I am now working 2 part time jobs (one of which is from home, praise God) and I am tired. I am tired of busyness, working, stressing about money, and having to tell my kids that they will have to wait b/c mommy has to work. At this point I am just trying to survive and often forgetting to lean on God in order to do that. The planner in me is coming back out and I am just trying to get everything done. Then came the sermon about Jacob wrestling with God. It was as if Pastor Dave was talking directly to me and me only. I knew that I was the one who was trying to do everything on my own and forgetting to ask God for help and guidance. As if the feeling in my heart wasn’t enough to prove that message was for me, Satan immediately began to attack. Thomas was at home sick that day so as I am trying to get both kids out of the church building Nate throws one of his biggest fits EVER. SO embarrassing when perfect strangers are offering to help with your child who is attracting the attention of everyone in the building, and not in a good way! I continued to pray that week seeking God and Satan continued to try to put me in a bad mood. I am ashamed to say how often he won.
The next Saturday after being a grouch to my husband I decided that the week had been ridiculous and I had to stop letting Satan win. I was going to work on myself and seek and pray more than I ever had before. That Sunday, I suddenly started thinking about Family Life. I had not though about it in 5 years and it was ALL I could think about. I spent the week trying to decipher if this was God talking to me or just me with some crazy idea for a change. I prayed all week about whether I should talk to Thomas about it. I finally resolved that if God was trying to lead me to Family Life, He didn’t need me to tell Thomas, but I did need Him to tell Thomas in order to affirm His voice to me. So I told no one.

Thomas:
On a recent trip to Tyler, Jamie and I had the rare opportunity to talk while the kids were sleeping in the car. We started talking about work and what was going on. It was nice to just talk without interruptions. As we were talking about work, I expressed my frustrations with work at the current moment. During a silent moment she said, “what are you thinking?” I outright told her that I think we missed out mark with not going to Family Life. It was at this point that Jamie revealed to me the struggle she had been going through for the past week. That was all the confirmation we needed. We filled out the form on line at Family Life to restart the process that night. It is our goal to serve God by being missionaries working with Family Life.

Jamie:
I am so excited! We both feel the greatest peace like a weight has been lifted off of us! We had our initial phone interview this week. The only thing that is currently standing in our way before we can move forward is that since the conference we went to 5 years ago we have had major financial struggles and now have debt that we have to get rid of. It is a big job but we are fully confident that God has called us to join Family Life and God will provide a way for us to do it. We are just hoping that He doesn’t make us wait as long as we made Him wait!

Thomas and Jamie:
So we ask you as our friends and family to pray for us during this journey. We do ask for prayer that God will start preparing our hearts for His work ahead of us. You can also pray that God will allow us to eliminate debt quickly. We can’t wait to see what God is going to do next.

Cat Napping :)

I have a data entry job that I do from my computer at home. I am lucky to have a huge computer desk that is more than big enough to hold Adah's bouncy seat, so she naps there while I work sometimes. For some reason it always seems to be very cold in my office, so one day our cat Sophie was looking for a warm place to nap and apparently Adah looked cozy.

This was super cute to me because this cat will not let Nate near her and never did, even when he was little. When Adah woke up with the cat on top of her she just pet her very softly and Sophie stayed there and let her!! It was crazy to see this cat act like that because she is normally so skittish around kids and babies. They have napped like this several times since this day. Sophie doesn't play with Adah, but they are napping buddies. :)

First Pigtails!

I still cannot believe how much hair our sweet girl has! She is so pretty and that dimple can melt a heart. One Sunday morning I decided to try pigtails for church. When I showed Nate he said "That's Jade's hair." Jade is a friend of his that wears pigtails very often so I guess he thought she had it trademarked of something ;)

Painting projects

Nate did several painting projects over the past 2 months. The first one was a little canvas that he painted for Miss Michaela's (his sitter who he LOVES) birthday. I put these pictures backwards, but he started out with a paint brush and ended up with paint all over his hands.

Our second project was painting wooden picture frames as gifts for his grandparents and great grandparents. When we painted the canvas, I had decided that it would work better if we did one color at a time and let it dry before doing another color. That way the colors would not all mix and make brown. Nate's friend Jade came over and painted with him that day. Every time we gave one of the frames out he told everyone that he painted it with Jade.

The last project we did was wrapping paper. I just bought packing paper and let him paint it. I stole this idea from Jennifer Chang, so don't think I am too awesome. It did turn out pretty cool and I am kicking myself for forgetting to take a picture of the finished product!