Lydia is a Christian!!!

WOW!!! We are so excited that Lydia has accepted Christ as her Lord & Savior at a young age!!

It all started on Monday...

Lydia & Caraline were jumping on Lydia's bed & for some reason, Lydia bit Caraline's hand. Caraline started crying so Scott ran in to check on her.

He asked Lydia what happened. She said that Caraline fell & hit the wall, but that wasn't true. The truth finally came out & Scott was upset Lydia lied. So he told her to stay in her room, he was going to come back to spank her for lying.

Scott shut her door & I heard her talking to herself, "Why did I do that?! Why did I lie!?! Why does God make me lie!!?? I'm mad at God!"

Scott walked in her room & she asked, "Why does God make me do bad things?" He said, "That is a question for your mother!" I was ready!! (Or God equipted me with the words!)

She asked me the same question. I asked her, "If we never sinned, would we need God?" She said "No" We talked about how God can't look at sin & Jesus died on the cross for her sins & he took her place when she should have been punished for those sins.

She looked at me & said, "I want to be a Christian." I said, "Do you know what to do?" She shook her head. I said, "All you have to do is pray a prayer that you believe in Jesus & that you believe that he died on the cross for your sins & rose again!"

Lydia & I prayed that prayer & she hugged me & started yelling, "I'm a Christian!! I'm a Christian!!" She was BEAMING!! She was dancing & so excited!

She was hugging me & Caraline, she called Nana & told her & called daddy to tell him!

She was on cloud nine! She told her teacher, she even told the lady at the dr office!! She was really proclaiming it to everyone & anyone!!

We celebrated by having a pizza picnic!

What a sweet experience!! She is so excited & we are so proud!! I pray that we can nurture that relationship with the Lord.

God is GOOD!!

"For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord & believe in your heart that God raise Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

"We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in the same way, no matter who we are or what we have done." Romans 3:22

Full Circle

3 years ago I wanted to get the girls Easter pictures done. I planned on going to Portrait Innovations. But Scott suggested that I dress them up in the Easter dresses, take them to the park & take the pictures myself. Brillant!! So I did & was VERY pleased with the pictures & that was before I had my SLR camera!!

I did it again this week. We went to Hafer Park (we usually go to Fink, but I think it has too much red mud) & it was the only park that I found that had GREEN grass & flowers considering we had a snow storm 3 days before! I discovered picnik.com & I could really edit these pictures! THey turned out really cute!

Here are some pictures from the last three years of Easter pictures:

"He is not here; he is risen like he said"

Matthew 28:6

We have a winner!!!

We have a winner!!

I went to Perry early Tuesday morning, thinking that if the girls were out of the house it would be cleaner longer for showings. On Tuesday we had 4 showings, 1pm. 2pm. & 2 people came at 6pm. Scott had to turn down a showing at 7 that day because at 5 o'clock that evening, the realtor called to tell us we had TWO offers!!

The first offer that came in was for $108,000 (asking price $108,900) asked for the washer & dryer, frig & $1000 of the closing costs. The 2nd offer was for $110,000 & $3400 of closing costs. It was a hard decision, but we decided to go with the first offer.

We put the sign in the yard on Sunday late morning, 7 showings in 2 days & two offers after one day on the market is so incredible & God's hand was on this whole situation!

We are really excited about the new house & starting to feel sentimental about this house...our FIRST house together...the house we brought our girls "home" to...but it's time for more space & we are looking forward to meeting our nieghbors & Lydia going to Chisholm Elementary.

I'm ready to start this new chapter/season of our lives! It's going to be another adventure! Thank you God for seeing us through this!

What a difference a week makes!!!

Ok, so last Tuesday, I had decided that we could stay in this house for a few more years & that would be ok.
Wednesday morning (March 10th) Scott called me in the morning, like usual, & asked me how I slept the night before. I said "Fine, I guess." He said, "I couldn't sleep!! I'm going to make an offer on the house this afternoon after work!" I said "WHAT!?!?!?!?" He had talked to the finance guy & he worked it out so he was comfortable with the payment plan.

Well, that day we got a letter from Chisholm Elementary saying that Lydia had been denied a transfer. I was a little upset & I called Scott & told him. He said that was ONE more sign that let him know that he was doing to right thing by making an offer.

The owner accepted our offer & we put our house on the market.

My mom came on Thursday & helped me do some de-cluttering. We went to Sesame Street Live that evening & the girls had a great time!!
Scott had taken Friday off anyway so he was able to do some small repairs. He took the girls to the Omniplex that afternoon & I was able to REALLY clean before the realtor came to take pictures.

We FINALLY got a sign in the yard Sunday after church & another house down the street was having an open house & then that evening a house 3 down from us got a sign in the yard too!

We had one "stalker" on Sunday, stopping & taking pictures & camping out in front of our house for about 10 minutes too long!!

On Monday, we had THREE showing that evening!!! We hung out at Tori's from 3:45-8:15!! we had a showing at 4:30, 6:00, 7:30...& TWO more scheduled for tomorrow, 1 & 6!! ALL of those showings were with different realtors!! We got A LOT of foot traffic!! I'm praying for an offer by the end of the week!

This is really exciting!!!

Praying that the right buyer comes along to love this house as much as we have!!

Tough Decisions

I never thought that the decision about where to send your child to kindergarten was going to be so tough!!

Right now, Lydia is going to a small private Pre-K. We LOVE it!! But they don't have a Kindergarten program.
There are two "parent choice" schools in Edmond where you apply for a lottery. They only have 2 teachers per grade level compared to the other school which have 4, 5 or 6 teachers per grade level. Needless to say, we didn't get a spot & were 81st & 84th on the waiting lists...so never mind!!

After looking at our nieghborhood school's test scores, Scott was not impressed. Not to mention Orvis Risener was an ALL day kindergarten program with 5 teachers, at 22-26 students each...TOO MANY KIDS & TOO LONG OF A DAY!!
So we put in for a transfer to Chisholm Elem. which is just down the street as well.

We started "jumping the gun" & looking at houses in the Chisholm area. We found one that was AMAZING!!! Almost 2100 square feet, LARGE bedrooms, LARGE master bathroom & walkin closet, beautiful backyard with an amazing patio & SO MUCH STORAGE (in the living room, hallway, bedrooms...)!!! I was in LOVE with this house!! It was priced at $170,000.
Here were the "hang-ups":
1. Not much privacy in the backyard....I guess Scott plans on mowing the yard in his underwear..
2. Since we have ZERO credit score, (because that's what happens when you don't have any debt!) we couldn't get a loan!!
3. After DOZENS of phone calls, we had SO many people helping us, it was so sweet...people calling "their people", the realtor calling bankers they knew, we were finally able to find someone who thought they could finance us!!

BUT after running the numbers, Scott decided that it was more house & price than we could chew. He didn't feel comfortable with the money left over that the end of the month....We could buy that house, but we couldn't eat!!!

I was REALLY disappointed!!! I really thought that the house was something that we could afford. If I'd KNOWN that the house was out of our price range, we would have never gone to look at it! I felt like it was within reach, but apparently not.


I guess we will go out & finance some furniture so we can have a credit score so in three or so years, we won't have so much trouble!!

Clean up your heart!

Lydia & I had an interesting conversation about sin the other morning. I want her to understand that everyone sins & needs a Savior. Sometimes at age five, sin is a difficult concept to comprehend. She thinks she doesn't sin because she acts good at school & doesn't get in trouble like some other kids. So as we talked, a light came on...a dim light, but a light.

She said she remembered when in Sunday school, they put mud on a heart & that was sin & then they cleaned it off & that was God "cleaning their heart" from sin. WOW!! That's a cool illustration! I need to remember that for Caraline!

A few days later, Scott & I were having a heated dicussion about something & the girls were in the room. Lydia does not like to hear us disagree & always tells us to "stop fighting". But that day she walked up to us & said "Clean up your heart!"

You can't argue with that!

"Create in me a clean heart, oh Lord, my God & renew a right spirit within me"

a verse from a song called "Create in me a Clean Heart"

I Love Jesus Valentine's day party & Katy's 34th birthday

We LOVE Valentine's day at our house.

Lydia wanted a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party arounf Christmas, but with the "Blizzard 2009" with 14 inches of snow, that wasn't possible. So we decided to have an "I love Jesus" Valentine's day party on Feb 13th. Lydia & Nana organized the whole thing. The Churchwell girls, Nana & Papaw & the Furgason family came to celebrate the love of Jesus. Nana read a story, we exchanged Valentines, had homemade pizza & snacks. the girls did Valentine crafts that Nana brought from Sunday School. Lydia had a great time & she was so happy to have this special party.

We made Valentine's day cards for our family with an owl on them at said "WHOOO loves you?" & inside we had a picture of the girls (or the grandchildren) that said "WE DO!" Getting the right picture was a little difficult, but we finally got ONE!!

My 34th birthday was the 15th. Scott had taken me out for a birthday surprise the Saturday before. We went to lunch & then to see "The Blindside". It was a great movie.

Monday night is the night I get together with Lisa & Christie. We have gotten together every week for 2 & a half years! They had a surprise planned as well.

I took me to the dollar movie to see "New Moon" (which I hadn't seen yet) then they gave me a gift card to Hobby Lobby! To top the evening off, we went to Orange Tree for yougart!!

What a wonderful Valentine's day & birthday!!