URGENT Prayer Requests:

The holiday season as wonderful as it is when it comes to being with family and friends, remembering that very first Christmas, does have some difficult times for some families that have been struggling a bit throughout the year. Please pray for these following families as they are leaning not on their own understanding, but God's.

MckMama and family: As many of you may remember her son, Stellan, had heart failure while he was still in utero. He was born healthy and has a great 8 weeks, but now he is battling a SEVERE case of RSV. He is on the edge of needing to put on a ventilator and is in the Pediatric ICU for the next 7-10 days! Will you please pray with me for Stellan's healing, especially tonight, and that he would not need to be put on a ventilator to help him breathe.

The Riggs Family: Abby is about to turn a sweet 4 years old is battling leukemia. This girl is a fighter, but her fight is long from being over and she continues to have SEVER side effects from her chemo treatments. The next few rounds are going to be the roughest on her little body. (I just realized today that Perryn is just over a year older than Abby.) Please pray for her healing and that she will be able to tolerate the chemo.

Chad and Nicole: I recently found Nicole's blog through my friend Laura over at String of Pearls. Their baby Dylan was born yesterday with Trisomy 18 and lived a perfect 7 hours. Please pray for their healing during this time of grief that they are experiencing. Please pray for the hands of God to be on them right now.

The Burrell Family: Many of you may remember that my first String of Pearls order was for this sweet and precious family as they celebrated the life of their precious little girl, Savannah. I check in on Christina every so often, and she is really struggling with not having her baby here with her right now. She trusts in God, but He is feeling far away from her right now. Please pray for this family as they continue to work through their grief!!

Thank you so much for praying for these families.

Merry Christmas

I hope each and everyone had a great Christmas with your families. This one was special to be able to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my grandparents. We enjoyed a fun day of opening presents, visiting with family, and remembering the birth of Jesus. We did, however, have some sad parts to today....Gabe had to work a 12 hour shift (so we haven't seen him since yesterday), AND Teagan has been sick most of the day. He had some moments of having fun and not feeling bad, but that was when he was loaded up on Advil. Bless his little heart he got REALLY sick right as I was trying to load up the truck to come home. So I had to stop that and Grandma and I had to clean him up a bit!! Looks like I'm calling the doctor tomorrow and not going to work...

Have a great holiday weekend...

Life...

So, when I wrote my last post I had just accepted a Full Time teaching position teaching 3 and 4 year olds!! Well, to say that our life has been turned upside down from that decision would be an understatement. The children and are I still trying to get into a good routine. This week was the first time we made it for ALL five days of preschool!!! We are going for 3 and 1/2 this week and then we are are off the next week to move.

Now the move...where to start there. I think we have a total of 15 boxes packed. I feel it's very DIFFICULT to notice that we are moving!! Our apartment looks like the Tazmanian Devil lives here, which adds to my stress. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect a perfect house, but I HATE living with 'pathways' and always stepping over stuff!! I am trying to figure out a way to hire 2-3 packers for 2-3 hours on Jan 2 so that EVERYTHING is in a box in time for the OFFICIAL move, even though we get our keys on the 31st.

Work...feels like the honeymoon period is over and the gratefullness that was felt for taking this very DIFFICULT class is gone. There are days where I feel like NOTHING is going right; however, I seem to be the only one that thinks that. I am not sure if that is good or not. I am finding myself climbing in bed around 8:30pm and asleep by 9ish, which is leaving little time to do any cards which in turn makes me sad. I know that once we get into a really good groove, I should be able to pick back up with my cards. I am not being able to go running, which I was just getting into a good routine with before I started working. I am so tired by Saturday, that we usually take that day as our Sabbath and just hang out; however, that means that we have A LOT to do on Sunday....which means that I should wrap this up.

Please pray for us. We have been able to get into a good groove during the week, I moved bedtime up to 7:30 instead of 8, I am still getting to have snuggle time with one child each night, but our weekends don't have a good groove. We just need to continue to see and feel God's grace on us right now. Thanks.

An update and a VERY worthy raffle!!

So, it's been a bit busy around this week as I took on a FULL time position with the Preschool that I have been working as a Substitute for. God's hands have been ALL over this job and He made it CRYSTAL clear that He wanted me to go full time. I am going to be able to still take a week off and a few days to move to our new apartment, but the BEST part is that we can STILL go help with the Food Pantry in Giddings EVERY month!! God is SO GOOD!!

We are continuing to praise His name this Holiday season as we look for the REAL meaning of Christmas. It's about helping those in need, supporting worthy causes, and it's about JESUS. For that I am going to start posting (as much as I can) some worthy causes that we are supporting this Christmas whether we do it monetarily or through prayer. The first one is CLOSE to my heart as I work with one of the beneficiary's side by side to help families who all of the sudden have had the hope taken out of their pregnancies.

MckMama is hosting a raffle over on her blog to help 3 special charities, String of Pearls, No Hands but Ours, and The Elison Project. I am COMPLETELY amazed that right now the raffle has earned over $9600!!! I think it might be because the item everyone is trying win is a Cannon Digital Camera with a lens, bag, and strap. Please head over the MckMama's blog to check out the raffle and enter in for a chance to win, but more importantly to support these great causes this holiday season!!!