Beauty

Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, 

for he is your Lord. 

Psalm 45:11

These two girls may not have been born where they were treated as Princesses, but hopefully we are making up for that. I hope they grow up knowing that when the world calls them names, puts them down or criticizes them, there is ONE who is ENTHRALLED with their beauty and a family that feels the same!

They certainly dressed differently this morning! One in shorts and short sleeves and one in pants, boots and a big jacket. I love this time of year when we are fine either way!
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Thank you, Lord!

I don't know what all Lia learned in Awana's tonight, but apparently she learned the most important thing of all: to praise God at all times!  Throughout the rest of the evening you could hear her in that sweet little (loud) Chinese/American accent saying,

THANK YOU, LORD!

It was too cute!

Yesterday, we spent the day watching Tia and her team play basketball.  After four games they won the championship game and were SO excited.  I tried to take pictures, but unfortunately, my camera gave me a message saying "battery exhausted."  So was I at that point, after sitting on the hard bleachers for many hours!  Mimi got some cute ones, so I'll post them later.  We had a great time and it was so much fun cheering on our girls.  They worked hard and made us proud! I guess I will never cease to be amazed at parents though.  Some of them obviously haven't figured out yet that the world does NOT revolve around our kids sports.  I had a parent from the opposing team yelling in my ear that we were cheating as she was making a complete fool of herself.   It really took some restraint on my part to keep from explaining some things to her!

Today was such a joy as we had a time of sharing our "cardboard testimonies" at church.  What an incredible way to share so much without ever uttering a word.  It was powerful and God was glorified. Check out some of the videos on youtube if you want to see some wonderful testimonies.  I'll let you know if ours was recorded or not later. Tonight, was a truly humbling experience as David was voted on to serve as a deacon in our church.  This is not something we take lightly and know that with the honor comes great responsibilities.  We look forward to serving in this capacity and thank those that put the faith in his ability to serve.

Finding time to blog is not always easy so in case you don't hear from me again for a little while:

Have a great week, be blessed and be a blessing!

Childlike understanding

This morning Lia was looking at my notebook with the following scripture,

"I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength."

Phil. 4:13

and she asked, "What does that mean?"
I told her it means we can do ANYTHING when Jesus helps us,
trying to explain to the understanding of a 5 year old still learning the language. 

I asked her, "What is something that is hard for you to do?"  

She replied, "Like cleaning my room?"

Yes, even cleaning our room!  

Oh, how I wish that was the hardest thing I had to do these days!

To have the faith of a child, isn't that what we are all called to have?

Here are our photos from another day at home as we enjoyed the snow:

 My two angels, making snow angels

Time for building a snowman with Daddy

The finished product sporting his new USMC hat!

 Sliding is fun in any weather!

                      David even got out the bread maker that hadn't been out of the cabinet in years.

Cinnamon raisin bread certainly made for a wonderful smell and the taste was YUM!

 

 This picture of my road reminded me of "A Road Less Traveled," by Robert Frost.

As I follow the Lord, I know there are times when I will have to take that road, but I will continue to remember that He will give me the strength for the journey.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Wintery, crazy days

 

 Yesterday morning when the blizzard blew in my girls were so excited to get outside.  It didn't take long for them to realize how cold it really was and to quickly come back in, thus the reason for me not insisting on them taking off the cute pajamas under their coats-one less load of laundry!

  We have some snow every year or so, but not in many years have we had temperatures this low.  Last night I think it got down to about 6 degrees with the wind chill around -3 and yes, we live in TEXAS!  I am beginning to wonder if the superbowl teams just decided to bring the weather with them.  

If so, I sure hope they take it back home when they go. 

                     To many people this barn is just an ugly structure that needs to come down, but to me I see its beauty and wish it weren't so expensive for us to salvage it.  I wonder how many families before us have used this barn and how many different animals have taken shelter here in the past. The snow storm last year took a toll on it and it is leaning more and more. 

This morning when I awoke I heard water dripping, which I thought was good, knowing that the pipes hadn't frozen.  Well, it wasn't so good, since it was not from the faucets I purposely left dripping.  Obviously, there is a leak from the upstairs that we thought was fixed and as you can tell is not.  I had been hoping to do some redecorating in my kitchen, but it was not in the immediate schedule.  I was so thankful that Nathan was home and able to help,  and that my wonderful neighbor gladly came to the rescue.  They had to cut a hole in the  sheet rock to relieve the pressure and keep the ceiling from collapsing while I kept buckets to catch the water. 

 

              

                      You don't think anyone will notice if I just leave it like this do you?                 

During the past two days I have spent more time than I should have reading friends info on facebook and have seen lots of complaining about the weather conditions.  So, I am going to see how many of you can leave me a comment about what you are thankful for despite the weather related problems.

Here is my list:

Despite the fact that parts of my house are 60 degrees because of minimal insulation and 120 year old windows, I am thankful that I have a warm fire and lots of blankets.

Despite the fact that my washing machine is frozen, I did ALL of my laundry yesterday and only have some wet towels today. 

Despite the fact that I have a lovely hole in my ceiling, I have a roof over my head and a beautiful family to share my home. 

Despite the fact that I haven't seen my husband in three days while he de-ices airplanes, we are thankful that he has a job!

Despite the fact that my floors can not stay clean in this mess, I have an amazing son who is 

helping me around the house and helping to entertain his sisters.

 

Despite the fact that I have two very busy girls and I haven't even had a chance to read my book, I have gotten to look at these beautiful faces constantly for the past two days.

That, my friends, is what helps me when I am tempted to complain to remember the words of Paul when he said, 

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."Phil 2:5