And Out Came The Second

Following a day behind the first, Taylor is now missing two teeth! She ended up pulling this one out after dinner. That's a big jump from the girl wanting to go on an all liquid diet. The poor tooth was just barely hanging on.

I have to admit I feel too young to have a child with missing teeth... she's growing up so fast. Apparently I am too :-)

First Missing Tooth

Taylor has had two very loose teeth these days. She woke up this morning and there was no doubt in my mind that this was the day. Now it's important to note that Taylor has been a little afraid to lose these teeth. Since the beginning of their looseness she has made me peel off all the skin of her apples, avoided anything hard to chew and if she had it her way would've lived off soup just to prolong the fall. So today her and I went to It's A Grind coffee shop before school. I ordered her a crumb donut and on her first bite of the morning the tooth was gone. She had no idea either. She said something and I was like "Taylor where did your tooth go? Did you swallow it?" We looked down on the ground and sure enough there was her small pearly white tooth. She's been giggling ever since! She's looks quite cute with her missing section and is well on her way to losing the other.

Bo Martin

This last week another nephew was added to our family. Bo Martin Daukas. Last night we got to meet him for the first time. He of course is adorable! Here's a couple quick shots I was able to grab while we were there.

Sweet Face

Taylor playing with his tiny feet

Working With Daddy

We had 4 ton of rock delivered to fill in some holes in our backyard. Trevor begged me to go out there so he to could shovel and push the wheelbarrow with daddy. Don't you just love his yellow mini shovel. Just another step closer to the house being ready. It's looking so much better out back too.

Actually I've come to appreciate my house and all it's potential the more we've cleaned and gotten ready. I should clarify that we aren't moving out of state or anything. We desire to stay as close to the church as possible. This home was never meant to be "the" home that we stayed in and raise our kids. We only had Taylor when we moved in and knew it would be a great four to five year home for us. Well we are coming up on four years, have added two kids and with much prayer felt as if now was the time to take advantage of low interest rates and the incredible buyers market. I should mention that my dad is our Realtor, an amazing Realtor at that, so we have always had a major advantage when it comes to moving. We really appreciate all his wisdom and time he's put into helping us make this decision. So I feel like I'm in a win/win situation. I love our home and our location but if we do move, Lord willing, it will be into something that would better serve our family and hospitality.

It's a bird, It's a plane...

It's a roomba! 

I realized it's been a whole week since I've posted... that's a long time for me. I have been very busy these days getting ready to put our house up on the market. Lord willing it will be up by next weekend and then come the fun days of trying to keep it clean with three little ones. We both have a peace about our decision and are confident that if the Lord's in this he will bring a buyer. I am praying that, although against all odds, he will bring one fairly quickly. 

In my daunting task of keeping the WHOLE house clean pretty much all the time, I'm so thankful for my Christmas present from my husband. The roomba! It's been put to such great use and I love how it cleans all my floors and then docks itself when it's done. The first night Chris and I watched it with my parents and would cheer it on as it would go after some crumbs and then we'd rejoice when it successfully picked them up. It's the little things ya know? 

So we'd appreciate your prayers and I'd happily take any advice out there on selling a house with little ones. 

The Lord is At Hand

Phil 4:4-6 Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be know to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

I love these verses. Our friend Dale put this scripture to music and the melody goes through my head often. Chris and I have been making some big decisions regarding our future living situation and not surprisingly, due to my sinful patterns, I have gone in and out of anxiety. This scripture and others have helped me. This morning I was re-reading John Piper's chapter Faith in Future Grace vs. Anxiety, in his book Future Grace. I was encouraged to keep fighting the fight of unbelief.

When anxiety strikes and blurs our vision of God's glory and the greatness of the future that he plans for us, this does not mean that we are faithless, or that we will not make it to heaven. It means our faith is being attacked. At first blow, our belief in God's promises may sputter and swerve. But whether we stay on track and make it to the finish line depends on whether, by grace, we set in motion a process of resistance- whether we fight back against the unbelief of anxiety.

A little further down in chapter four of Philippians's, vs19 says, And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Under the promise of "My God will supply all your needs" Piper says,

If we live by faith in this promise of future grace, it will be very hard for anxiety to survive. God's "riches in glory" are inexhaustible. He really means for us not to worry about our future.

I love that, he really means! Cares and anxieties will come and we can by God's grace cast them upon the Lord because he really means for us to trust and look to Him to care for our future!

And finally Matthew 6:27-28 And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? And why are you anxious about clothing? With this verse Piper comments,

This is a promise of sorts- the simple promise of reality: anxiety will not do you any good. It's not the main argument, but sometimes we just have to get tough with ourselves and say, "Soul, this fretting is absolutely useless. You are not only messing up your own day, but a lot of people's as well. Leave it with God and get on with your work". Anxiety accomplishes nothing worthwhile.

How true that is, anxiety accomplishes nothing worthwhile. It is much better for my soul, my children's sake and those I come in contact with today to trust the Lord, He is at Hand and to be anxious about nothing, rather bringing my cares to him in Prayer for he will meet all of my needs.

Pictures from Glory

Considering I have over 200+ photo's from this weekend I thought I'd just post the ones of the family. I'll upload the others to my flickr account when I get a chance... and with 200+ photo's it might be time to go pro! I'll let you know when that's done :-)

I was so thankful for Chris to let us grab him for a moment for this shot. He was very busy man!


Taylor and her baby snowman she created with Ruth!


Mother/Daughter


Taylor doing her devotion in the morning
I love her expressions..

A beautiful Prescott sunrise

Beholding is Becoming

The winter retreat was a huge success!

The basis of Glory was that to behold Christ is to become more like him. So that's what we did. We beheld him in his birth, death and resurrection. When Chris first brought the theme to me back in June I knew the temptation of the retreat for myself and others was to think we've heard all that we need to hear on these subjects. But God blessed the messages and that was no where near the case. I left again humbled by what my Savior has done for my, an undeserving sinner. I left secure in the promises that the resurrection brings.

Driving up to the retreat I stopped to get some gas. As I stepped out of my car a homeless man asked if he could wash my windows for some change. I said sure and drew him out while he did. The man professed to know Christ and went on to say how hard it is to live life like this. He just wasn't sure what God was doing. God laid it on my heart to share with him that he is not to live for this life but the next. That the joys of Heaven will far surpass his trials on earth. The man broke out in tears and was overjoyed by this message from the Lord. He said he was praying all day for God to bring him some sort of encouragement and this was it. I too left in tears and prayed for Curt. While at the retreat I was convicted at how excited I can get at the Gospel at work in others lives. My neighbors, the man at the gas station, my family but I've grown to familiar with it to allow the Gospel's work in my own life to bring me to tears. I am quick to see how it can change other's lives and long to have that same passion and perspective for myself. I'm thankful that's no longer the case and pray that I would not again grow familiar with it's work. See it's much, much, easier for me to focus on becoming and to skip beholding the Glory of Christ.

Chris did such an incredible job. The Lord really used him! I'm always amazed at the multi-level gifting he has. He administrated the retreat, helped in creative elements, lead worship, prepared and gave three passionate, fruit bearing messages and ministered to people afterwards. I'm proud to be his helper in this short life!

Taylor was wonderful. She sat through every message coloring and reading quietly next to me. She enjoyed seeing patches of snow and hanging out with the Singles. I enjoyed having some special time with her. Ruth and Luz thanks for the way you cared for her too!

I'll post some pictures in a separate post.

Glory

Today Taylor and I will head up to Prescott to attend the fourth annual singles retreat. This year's theme is Glory. I'll let my husband's words explain the retreat, taken from a recent blog post:
Glory.

One little word. Gigantic meaning.

How do you define Glory? What exactly is it? How do you adequately describe it? It’s hard to talk about, but easy to understand. We know God is glorious. We know His creation is glorious. We know His plan for the ages is glorious.

But sitting atop them all with particular brilliance is the glory of the gospel in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It all revolves His glory.

His glorious life. His glorious death. His glorious resurrection. That’s the focus for this year’s Winter Retreat. Come with hearts that are open to seeing Christ anew. Come wanting God to make you more like this glorious Savior we are going study. Come anticipating the glory of God at our retreat!


This year two other Sovereign Grace Churches singles ministries will be joining us. Which I believe will add up to about 120 people. My husband is so pumped about all that he's learned and the way his own study prep for these messages have encouraged him in his walk with the Lord. I'm eager to see his hard work unfold and be to be refreshed by the word. I'm also excited to have Taylor with me. It'll be interesting for sure but I really think it's going to be a sweet time for her & I. Chris and I have had some amazing spiritual conversations with her and often it's hard for me to find the time during the day in and day out of life to sit and really listen and answer her questions. Something to grow in. Well her and I will have plenty of time this weekend. She is really excited to see her daddy lead worship, preach and of course snow:-) Pray for us and the singles in attendance!

Another Blooming Musician

For Christmas Taylor got this little karaoke speaker with a microphone. She's loved it and is constantly practicing the new worship songs she learns on Sunday mornings. But Taylor isn't the only one taken to singing recently. It turns out Trev might be able to carry a tune. Even Rylee joins in on this song with her long "oh and then appy ay" were still working on the other syllables with her.

Here's Trevor singing O Happy Day and watch for the announcement at the end... :-)

Seeing with a new lens

As I mentioned in my previous post I got a new camera for Christmas. I've had tons of fun taking lots of pictures these past few days. I still have SO much to learn!! Here are a few of my favorites. Double click a picture to make it bigger.



This is my neighbor's very cute dog... the kids just love her and beg me to get them one. My rules are everyone in our house has to use the potty successfully before a dog enters our home!


Thought I'd give black and white a try...


The goal was to have taylor blow and the willows go everywhere while I took a photo... but she blew and blew and nothing happened.


I love how intense Rylee is here, she so wanted to touch the camera! My friend Luz actually took this one but hey it's still my camera right?


This was a beautiful park day and by chance they all three happened to run off together. This was one of those quickly take the shot and then yell at them because they've run off to far away from you :-)

New Year & Birthday Gifts

We began this new year with carpet. Lots of it. New years day we spent emptying out our three bedrooms. Sounds much easier than it was. We have had some new carpet that was given to us in our garage and scheduled to have it installed on Wednesday. The guy showed up and informed us that the carpet was completely unusable. (Would've been good to know that before we tore down the bunk beds and our massive bedroom furniture)

We made the decision to go ahead and move forward with replacing our carpet. It was old and had some not pretty stains and the thought of moving everything back in only to one day have to move it back out again to replace carpet was just too much for Chris. Thankfully through my dad's connection with a carpet guy we found some in stock at his warehouse for a great price and only put us out one more day of our home. So I woke up Thursday morning, now 29, at my parents house and went home that night to beautiful newly carpeted rooms! It was a great birthday present.

I also got a few other great gifts. One being that my new Nikon D40 arrived and I was able to use it for the first time on my birthday. Wow what an amazing camera. Pictures to come very soon. My parents and my Grandma Jones got me a really cool carrying case and my brother and sister-in-law were so very generous to pay for this class I've been wanting to take on creative photography. I was so blessed by their desire to pay for the whole class themselves. Totally unexpected. My mother in law gave me a beautiful necklace and well my husband gave me new carpet ;-)and as if that wasn't enough he purchased the Sara Groves piano songbook for me! I could go on and on by how kind people were to bless me for my birthday! So all that to say it was a great day, a little different than other years considering the upheaval to our home, but I am so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends.

A special thanks to my old friend and blog reader Kiersten for buying our dinner at Joe's BBQ on my birthday night. Seriously that blessed us more than you could know!!

Happy New Year

Last night we were able to welcome in the New Year with some of our friends. Miracle or miracles with got seven kids to bed in our three bedrooms! With had lots of yummy food and played wii until the countdown.

As you can see we had no problem eating ourselves into the new year...


If you haven't tried the wii you really should :-)


One last picture before the new year




We started the new year morning off to this. I guess it is appropriate to awake to a mess from Trevor. Hopefully this doesn't speak to what lies ahead :-)