This and That

My kids really had a milestone kind of week. Avery has really started saying all kinds of things. Last night she came in the living room with her blue ball saying "My Blue Ball!" It was so cute! What is NOT cute is her new climbing ability. She opens up the lazy susan, which I can't seem to find a child lock for and climbs up on to the counter... AGH! But she is also dressing herself and putting her own shoes on ... so that helps! :) On the not so much bright side, more like the brown side, I have changed more horrible diapers in the last 4-5 days than I can ever remember. A nasty stomach virus has weasled its way into the Boone house and let me just say, it's not pretty. Ew.
Dalton is getting better and better at walking. We practice every night and he walks in between Aaron and me. The only problem is that if you are the one he is walking TO, you are in danger. He just gets so excited that when he gets there he starts laughing and screaming and BITING! It hurts so bad! Then when you tell him "no," he rears his head back and screams more. It's truly terrifying.
With that said ... Here is my prayer for today for my little yay-hoots.

Becoming a Praying Parent

Lord, I submit myself to You. I realize that parenting a child in the way You

would have me to is beyond my human abilities. I know I need You

to help me. I want to partner with You and partake of Your gifts of wisdom,

discernment, revelation, and guidance. I also need Your strength and patience,

along with a generous portion of Your love flowing through me.

Teach me how to love the way You love. Where I need to be healed, delivered,

changed, matured, or made whole, I invite You to do that in me. Help me to

walk in righteousness and integrity before You.

Teach me your ways, enable me to obey Your commandments and only do

what is pleasing in Your sight.

"The righteous man walks in His integrity; his children are blessed after him." Prov. 20:7

I just think those are so good and such an easy way to pray for our children. Sometimes it's hard to know what to pray over my wee ones. MeLeah also gave us a calendar this year and on every day of the month it has a different thing to pray over your child: integrity, discernment, patience, kindness ... it's a great tool.

OK, People it's time for dun dun ta dun ....

WHAT'S FOR DINNER??

Tonight I'm going to make grilled pork chops, fried okra, and macaroni and cheese.

I'm not gonna lie, I have a lot of Paula Deen in me, and not so much of ... I don't even know the names of any "health food" cooks. I'm not good at that. I try to make balanced meals as far as a meat, a starch, and a veggie ... but I also really love butter and heavy whipping cream. I'm sure you can see my dilemma. I'm going to pray for a high metabolism for my kiddos and get them to drink more water. Plus my kids eat fruit all the livelong day.... I have no idea why I'm feeling the need to defend myself all of the sudden. Good gracious I've got some security issues. I better go.

Love, Rebekah

A Happy Day.

The last couple days have been pretty heavy around here. I am just so broken-hearted for my friend, Morgan. Thursday night from 6-8 p.m. was the visitation for her mom at their church in Sheridan. I have seriously never seen anything like it. There were people wrapped around the church in line to hug her family and pay their respects. We got there right at 6 and waited for over an hour ... Can you believe that? That is such a testimony to their family and how loved their mom was. When we left, at about 7:45 the line was even longer than when we had gotten into it, so I can't imagine how long Morgan and her family stayed up there. I can only imagine how exhausted they must have been.
Yesterday afternoon was the Memorial Service and it was truly beautiful. Morgan gave a tribute to her mom and she did such an amazing job. I know that God gives grace to those who are mourning and carries them, but she is just so strong. She said from the start that she wasn't going to cry, that she would just smile instead. She said that "today is a happy day for us." She gave tributes from all of Mrs. Carol's siblings with touching sentiments and funny tidbits like, "She thought every recipe could be improved by adding rotel." (My kind of lady!)
She told a little bit of her mom's history, how her parents met, fun stories about her childhood. She just did such a great job. She also gave a "cry" from their family, saying that people keep commenting on how strong their family is, and it's because they know where she is. She went on to say that they knew that many people had been touched by their faith and had come to Christ and if they were giving their mom to the Lord for them to come to Christ, she really hoped they would make that extra step and follow Him. It was very moving. Morgan's posts on the caringbridge were such a ministry. She had a message and I think it reached a lot of people. There have been over 30,000 hits to that site in only one month. One of the best challenges she gave was when she continually said, "I hope we are all listening to God during this time, and not just talking to Him." That is so good. It's so easy to just talk and talk and tell Him what we need, but it's so much more important to meet with Him and listen for what He has to tell you. And I don't think He tries to talk over us
She read this verse at the end too, which I just think is SO powerful. It was the last verse she wrote on the caringbridge website, the night Mrs. Carol died. I'm going to work on memorizing it.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."" Revelation 21:3-5

I think the thing that was the most touching, to me, was how she ended it. She said she had struggled to find how to close and all she could think of was the Little Mermaid and how many times she had watched all three of the movies. She said there was a part at the end of the first movie where Sebastion and King Tritan were sitting on that rock watching Ariel go off with the Prince and Sebastion said, "There, just one problem," and he asked what it was and he replied, "How much I'm going to miss her." And she said that was what was going to be hard, how much she was going to miss her. :(
I boo-hoo'ed.
I'm attaching her obituary, in case you would like to see it. Please keep this sweet family in your prayers.

Love, Rebekah

http://www.webfh.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=240596&fh_id=10392&s_id=10A61F6369C1BD87952B0AF3E695B3A2

Bittersweet Weekend

This weekend was full of highs and lows ....

We played hard again all day Saturday. Sarah Baker and I went to a little girl clothes show at Jan Collins house for a line she was showing, "Matilda Jane." We got Avery some super cute stuff- kinda like Anthropologie for kids. Sarah Baker got Avery some shorts for her birthday that are the most precious things ever:



How stinkin' cute are they?

Aaron was out at the baseball fields so we went over to Aunt Mandy's (Aaron's Aunt Mandy) for a little while. Mandy has a little girl, Maci, who I post pics of all the time, but don't know if I've ever said who she was. A couple of weeks ago they went to Disney World for Maci's birthday and while they were there they got Avery a surprise. We had a grand ole' time and Avery was thrilled about her new princess dress! Avery and Maci had a great time "discussing" whether they should twirl in the yard or ride the little John Deere truck through the yard. After a tail-gate-spaghetti supper- picnic and bath time we ventured home to see "Da-da" for the first time all weekend :( Somehow I ended up still awake at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Here are some pics from our fun-filled Sat night.


Miss Maci ... she's so shy! ;)


Avery escaped before I could get her diaper on!





Bubba is thinking how silly these crazy girls are!

On Sunday we took the kids out to Hot Springs Village, where Aaron's parents live to play in the sun and sand on Lake Balboa. The kids just ate it up. It was really fun! However in my attempt to make sure they were covered in lots and lots of sunscreen, I managed to forget to put it on myself... I'm this color RED. Bad deal. Everytime Aaron tries to give me a hug or even sit anywhere close to me, I squeal because I am just burned to a CRISP! Here are some pics of us at the lake ... I am SOOOO excited summer is inching closer our way.


Please notice how I'm practically as white as my tank top here .... what was I thinking?!?!


He was loving his mandarin oranges and being outside ... so messy!!


Bubba loves kisses from Maw!


Working on his walking!!



My messy mohawked boy! He had lots of sunscreen in his hair!


I don't think they moved from this spot all day!


I have no words.


They both just LOVED the sand!!


They are both about to cash out. I think all three of us were asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot... Poor Aaron!

This weekend was bittersweet because Sunday afternoon I got a call that one of my best friends, Morgan, mom was dying. She had been in the hospital since April 1 for a routine valve replacement that she had had before with no problem. Mrs. Balwanz had had a tough time in surgery and several things went wrong over the last month in recovery. She really never woke up. I spent all of Sunday night at the hospital and was just brokenhearted for my friend and her family. Morgan and Derrick got married March 21 .... I posted pics of their wedding weekend. They got back from their honeymoon on a Sunday night and her mom's surgery was the following Wednesday morning. Derrick has been so awesome through the whole ordeal. I know Morgan is so glad to have him. I have just never felt more helpless. I know there is nothing to do or say ... I just want to be of some comfort to her. Morgan updated a blog site caringbridge.org/visit/carolbalwanz several times daily and in the last month almost 30,000 visits have been made to the site. Morgan's faith and trust in God's will for her family have been amazing and such a ministry to me. I just love Morgan so much. Please pray for their sweet family during this tough time.


The Balwanz Family on Morgan and Derrick's Wedding Day, March 21, 2009.

A Weekend to Remember

This past weekend Aaron and I went to Family Life's "A Weekend to Remember." It was in Little Rock at the Peabody. Even though it wasn't really a "vacay," it was such a treat to get away together and have some "us" time. (I'm getting kinda crazy with the quotations ... sorry about that.)
Greg Speck was the main speaker and I really think he is one of the best speakers I have ever heard. He touched on so many things that I needed to hear and delivered it in a way that I was actually receptive to- Not always the easiest thing to do with me. I think one thing that was so great about going to this marriage conference, is that sometimes there are things I want to talk to Aaron about, but I don't want to be that nagging wife, so I just ignore it and wait for a better time. But at the conference whenever you leave a session, you leave with an application project and they always have questions about what you just heard to discuss with your spouse. Ahhh-mazing. It was just really good for us. My sister and brother-in-law went and a couple from our community group, the Friedmanns and we all really really liked it. I'm still on information overload. I was seriously worn out by the end. But it was all so good, I'm just still trying to process everything I heard.By Sunday we were all kinda getting antsy, but still thinking it was a great weekend.

Here are some of my favorite "nuggets" from the conference ...
~ "Difficulties do not mean something is wrong with your marriage. Your response to difficulties will either drive you apart or bind you together."
~ My favorite thing from the whole weekend was this. It was seriously revolutionary to me:
"Always respond to EMOTION with EMOTION and FACT with FACT." He gave an illustration like this ... "If your husband looks at you and tells you, "honey, we aren't going to be able to spend $5000.00 on new living room furniture right now." and you have an emotional breakdown, sobbing "you don't love me." That's responding with emotion to fact ...I seriously busted out laughing ... GUILTY of that on so many occasions. I thought that was such good advice.
~ "The point in an argument is not to agree, but to understand."
~2 Things I want to work on in communication is "focus on what is being said, not the way it is being said." and to "think before I speak."
~ "If we don't purposefully find time to connect, we will accidentally drift into isolation."
~ Other couples fight too ... there are lots of times I think we're the only ones.
~ The idea of "unconditional respect," I had always just thought about unconditional love ... this idea of unconditional respect is much harder, but obviously of equal significance.
~ We talked about the word "submit" in our woman to woman session. She talked about how the word submit is also a military term having to do with two officials of equal rank, equal experience, same gender ... equal in every way. But one will submit to the other for the sake of the mission. I thought that was really really good.

We really had a great time and I just really enjoyed getting out of the house for a couple days with Aaron. It made me realize that it needs to be more of a priority. Today I went to a talk that Bill and Ann Parkinson gave at our church. They were talking about raising their kiddos and such. They talked about how there are 2 kinds of couples: Ones that made their marriage the priority and ones that made the kids the priority. It is so easy to let your lives just focus on the kids ... but we really want to be better about that!

I would highly recommend the conference ... for more info check out familylife.com/weekend and the main speaker has a website too gregspeck.com.
I know Family Life has the conferences all over. I think it would be fun to go to one in a fun city where you go to the conference for the first couple days and then stay and do other fun things for a few days too! :)

That's my plug ...

What an Awesome God We Serve

Right now I am doing a bible study called "Discerning the Voice of God," by Priscilla Shirer. It is absolutely fantastic and I really feel like I am learning so much about God and how He speaks to us. Last night we were watching the video and she was speaking on how we are all looking for different things and she started talking about God and how throughout the Bible He reveals more and more about Himself and how He truly is EVERYTHING we need. As she started going through how every Book of the Bible revealed different amazing qualities of the Lord tears filled the eyes of all of us because it was so amazing to hear!! We all were in AWE of the power of God. My mom told me it was a song and so I searched it out on-line and found it. I sent it out to all my e-mail contacts, but loved it so much I thought I'd post it on here too... SO ENJOY!! It was so much better to actually HEAR the passion and strength that she recited this with... but reading it is pretty powerful too. I just thought it was AMAZING

In Genesis, He is the Breath of life.
In Exodus, our Passover Lamb.
In Leviticus, our Great High Priest.In Numbers, Fire by night.
In Deuteronomy He is Moses' voice.
In Joshua, Salvation's choice.
In Judges, He is the Law Giver.
In Ruth, our Kinsman Redeemer.
In 1 and 2 Samuel, He is the Trusted Prophet.
In 1 and 2 Kings and
1 and 2 Chronicles, the Sovereign One.
In Ezra, He is the True and Faithful Scribe.
In Nehemiah, the Rebuilder of broken walls and lives.
In Esther, He is our courage.
In Job, the Timeless Redeemer.
In Psalms, He is our Morning Song.
In Proverbs, Wisdom's Cry.
In Ecclesiastes, He is the Times and Seasons.
In Song of Solomon, the Lover's Dream.
In Isaiah, He is the Prince of Peace.
In Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet.
In Lamentations, He is the Cry for Israel.
In Ezekiel, the Call from sin.
In Daniel, He is the Stranger in the Fire.
In Hosea, He is Forever Faithful.
In Joel, He is the Spirit's Power.
In Amos, He is the Arms that carry us.
In Obadiah, our Lord and Saviour.
In Jonah, He is the Great Missionary.
In Micah, the Promise of peace.
In Nahum, He is our Strength and Shield.
In Habbakuk and Zephaniah, He is pleading for revival.
In Haggai, He restores our lost heritage.
In Zechariah, He is the Fountain.
In Malachi, the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His wings.
And that's just the OLD TESTAMENT!!!!

In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, He is God, Man and Messiah.
In Acts, He is the Fire from heaven.
In Romans, He is the Grace of God.
In Corinthians, the Power of Love.
In Galatians, He is Freedom from the curse of sin.
In Ephesians, He is our Glorious Treasure.
In Philippians, the Servant's Heart.
In Colossians, He is the Godhead Trinity.
In 1 and 2 Thessalonians, He is the Coming King.
In Timothy, Titus and Philemon, He is our Mediator and Faithful Pastor.
In Hebrews, the Everlasting Covenant.
In James, He is the One who heals the sick.
In Peter, He is the Shepherd.
In John and Jude, He is the Lover coming for His Bride.
In Revelation, He is King of Kings and Lord of lords.

He is the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man.The Lamb of God, the Great I Am.The Alpha and Omega, our God and Saviour.Jesus Christ the Lord.And when time is no more. . .He still is!

DID YOU KNOW?
There are 66 books in the Bible;There are 1,189 chapters;There are 31,373 verses;There are 773,692 words;There are 3,580,483 letters?
AND THAT YOU. . .
Can read the Bible in one year by reading three chapters on weekdays and five chapters on Sundays?
In the stillness of the morning,Before a busy day of care how sweet to be alone with God,Through His Holy Word and prayer.
God speaks to those who take the time to listen.

I hope this gave you even a little bit of the encouragement it gave me- How exciting it is to know what an AWESOME GOD we serve!!! Someone told me this is a song as well ... check it out!

10 Months Today!

Today Dalton turned 10 months old. For some reason this is the first time a birthday (with either child) has kinda hit me in my gut. But this one did. He is just starting to look a lot older and 10 months sounds really close to a year. I just get really upset thinking about how much I LOVE him at this age right now. I am his favorite person, he lights up whenever he sees me (but Avery is a very close second). He is seriously the happiest baby ever. He just smiles, plays contently by himself or with others. He sleeps all night, he is easy to please. He will pretty much eat anything he loves to give kisses and is just so full of life. It makes me realize that this is the only time he will be this age, then all I will be able to do is look at pictures to remember him as a baby. I could seriously break down right this minute. Is that the cheesiest thing ever?!?! Don't answer that....

Here are some sweet things about my perfect, precious baby boy right now.

He sleeps from about 8:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. every night.

He drinks a bottle when he wakes up followed by breakfast that usually consists of fruit and some kind of bread: muffin, biscuit, toaster strudel or pancakes. He then takes a nap, wakes up and eats some lunch. That usually consists of turkey, or chicken, cheese, crackers or goldfish and fruit. He plays for a couple hours and then takes his afternoon bottle and nap. He wakes up and plays and usually eats whatever we are having for dinner. He is such a good eater! Then he takes a bath and goes night-night by 8:30-9.

He loves any and all fruit.

Juice is his favorite beverage (overly-diluted White-Cran Peach and White-Cran Strawberry preferably) but he did just discover milk a few days ago and he is very excited about it.

He goes into his bed completely content when it is time for a nap. I just pat his head and he closes his eyes, usually smiling. However, when he wakes up he starts immediately screaming bloody murder until I come get him. As soon as I walk in he starts jumping up and down smiling again. Avery used to hang out contently in her crib forever. She still will lay in her bed for a long time when she wakes up until she is ready for me to come get her.

He LOVES being outside, I am so excited about getting to be outside now that it is warm out.

He gets diaper rash a LOT, his little skin is so sensitive. (Avery NEVER got diaper rash).

We just bumped both of them up to size 5 diapers ... (I think that's why I've been so upset about this month's b-day. There have been so many changes this month)

He babbles all day long- talking talking talking

He cruises around the couch and crawls very very fast.

He reaches for me now! Yahoo!!

I can tell he's going to be sensitive. Mom always says "Can't you tell it would be really easy to hurt his feelings." This makes me laugh.

He is a major GRUNTER. He grunts about everything, especially if you're taking too long to get his food!

He ways a little over 24 pounds ... Today when we went to the doctor to check out his ears again they asked me if he could stand on the scale ... I politely said "No, he's an infant, a really big infant."

Another reason I don't want him to get older is because I know people will start asking me, "so when are y'all having another one." I'm sure I have said before that I want 5, but now I'm just taking it one at a time (or pretty much 2 at a time in my case). When they are both in some kind of 3-5 day a week pre-school or kindergarten, we'll talk about adding on. For now, we're good. :)

Doctor Days.

This morning I called the doctor because Avery has been coughing and coughing the last couple nights. About 9 when I thought about getting us all ready for the 9:30 appointment I was looking at the downpour, the quiet babes, and thinking "Oh, maybe they're better today." I thought better of it and decided we should still go ahead and go. They were pretty much in their PJs and sweatpants (as was I), but of course Avery had a big bow in, so that helped. This was my second solo trip to the doctor with both of them in 10 months. It's a crazy experience. Today was a lot better, but still chaotic. How do people do it with 3? The getting out and getting in to the vehicle is the worst. It scares me to death. Even with help it's crazy, that's why I never have pics of us at the doctors office. I should just take a pic of the building before we go in. After we walk through those doors pictures are a distant memory- We're in survival mode. Avery is opening every drawer, cabinet, trying to escape the room, while trying to kiss snotty sick kids that probably have measles, mumps and rubella. It's a zoo.
Dr. W checked both kids out and told me that Dalton had two ear infections, and Avery had one as well. Oh. My. Gosh. I felt terrible. Even if there's nothing I can do about it, I felt terrible. Poor little lambies. Dalton always goes right down for naps or bedtime, he usually will just smile at me while I'm patting his little head and go right to sleep. The last two days he has screamed bloody murder when I put him in his crib. Gee Whiz. I'm so glad I took them in. Avery fell asleep on the way home, I put her in my bed because she woke up and a few minutes later I went in there to take my shoes off and she was out- O-U-T!! She needed that nap. Dalton ate some lunch and he went down too after a big dose of Tylenol. I could tell that helped him pretty quickly.
Hoping they feel better soon!!