Birthdays, blessings, and pink hair

Hello, everyone. First of all, I've had to turn the CAPTCHA back on for the comments. Blogger's spam filter is great, so the spammy comments don't come through on here, but I get around 10 a day in my email, and it's driving me nuts.

So things have been going great around here. Nick had a wonderful time as a worker at church camp, and there was one saved. It's just made my heart full to see how much my wonderful husband has grown in the Lord over the past few months. He even led devotions for his cabin one night, something that was way out of his comfort zone, and I'm so proud of him!

Morgan didn't have as great of a time, but I think it was mostly because she went from Washington into camp without even a stop at home in between, and she was exhausted. I'm hoping she enjoys it more next year.

Okay, I know I'm always talking about how much God provides for us and blesses us. And this is true. But I want to talk for a minute about what happens when I stop trusting and get out of His will. A couple of pay periods ago, we were short. Really short. So I asked Nick if he thought we should pay our tithe (something we make a real effort at doing every pay period), and he told me no. Now to be perfectly honest, I felt like this was a mistake, but I knew all I needed to worry about was being obedient to my husband. So I prayed that God would honor my obedience and protect our bank account. And for a number of days that's just what He did. There were transactions that should have cleared days earlier, but they held out there for no natural reason, and our balance stayed in the positive.

Then one day I went out of my way to call one of my friends and gossip about a mutual acquaintance. It was unkind and uncalled for, and I knew as I was making the call that I was doing something I shouldn't. But I did it anyway. And just like that I stepped out of God's will and out from under His umbrella of protection. That night all those transactions that were hanging out there cleared the account and overdrew it. And even worse, it turned out that our account, which for 10 years has offered 5 waived overdraft fees per year, had been changed without our knowledge to only waive one overdraft fee. So not only did the account overdraft, but we got hit with some stiff fees as well.

Our bank agreed to waive a couple of them, but we still had to pay $70, and we had to go get a cash advance to cover the overdraft, something we've not had to do in a very long time.

Now you would think we would learn our lesson. Unfortunately, the next paycheck was just as short, and we made the same foolish decision to hold back our tithe. Once again, we went overdrawn, this time the very day before the next payday, which was this past Friday

Finally, we came to our senses, and when we went to church a couple of days ago we had our tithe check ready. And I'm not going to lie, it was still hard. Nick's check was better than usual, but we were still short on bills (in no small part because of the overdraft and check advance fees we'd had to pay). But I couldn't wait till that collection plate came around this time. I didn't know where the money for the rest of the bills was coming from, but I knew that we were doing what we were supposed to finally, and we could count on God's provision.

I told Nick that I was going to need more money no later than Tuesday (today) to pay the phone, internet, and electric, and asked him to pray about it. Last night a guy came by and bought Nick's Fairlane (he put it up for sale a while ago), cash in hand. I had to smile as I paid those bills today. God is always right on time!

Now, a couple of things I want to be clear on: God doesn't need my money. He wants my obedience and my trust. And I don't believe that God is punishing us when we don't pay our tithe, but I do believe that when we choose to disobey we remove ourselves from His hand of protection. I'm not telling anyone here what to believe on the matter of tithing - I'm only sharing my experiences. And these are experiences that we've had a number of times over the years.

On another subject, our Father's Day was wonderful! There are a number of June birthdays in my husband's family, including his dad's and his grandmother's, and for years we've had a June birthday party up at his grandparent's cabin on the lake, the one where we spent our honeymoon. It turned out that the only day most of the family was able to get together for it was on Sunday, so after church we all went up for a cookout/birthday/Father's Day celebration.

This was the first time Nick's grandmother has gotten to hold Jack as she's been sick every time we've seen her since he was born. She was in great grandmother heaven cuddling his sweet little body, and he rarely left her arms. For gifts Nick made cornhole board sets for his grandparents and his dad, and I made the corn bags to go along with them. Nick's dad had made sets for the church to take to camp, and Nick had done the artwork on them. They were a huge hit at camp (they even had a Final Four style tournament), and they were just as big a hit as birthday/Father's Day gifts.

I took Jack and Daisy to the doctor last week. Daisy just hadn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks, nothing we could pinpoint, but noticeable enough to set my mommy senses tingling. It turns out she has mono. This shocked me to say the least (she's not exactly running around kissing boys at two), but her doctor said that about half of all kids in the States catch it before they reach school age; it just goes undiagnosed a lot of the time. Fortunately she seems to be on the tail end of it and has already perked up a lot.

Jack was just due for a checkup and a couple of shots. He's a bouncing 11lb 12oz now, and he's 23 1/2 inches long. That's 8lb 1oz and 6 1/4 inches since birth! For the record, Daisy is now 3' 1" and weighs 32 lb. :-)

There's been a new girl move in next door, and she and Morgan are already fast friends. She even came to church with us Sunday. It made me happy that she moved in, because the family that just moved out had 3 kids, and Morgan and Daisy both played with them.

Morgan and I got pink streaks put in our hair, and I'm kind of in love with them.

Let's see, what else? In a little over a month we leave for the beach with Nick's family! It will be great to see his sister and her kids and husband. They are the ones who live in Texas. We usually go there for our vacation, but they sold their lake house right after our visit last year, so this year they booked everyone accommodations on Sea Island. We've never been, but it looks like it's going to be gorgeous, and Nick is dying to get out on the golf courses.

Just before we leave for the beach will be VBS at church. My friend Elizabeth and I are helping out a lot with the crafts, and I can't wait! A couple of weeks after we get back from the beach Kate and I are throwing a baby shower for Kelly.

Oh, and I'm supposed to be getting spanked, although there's not really been an opportunity to take care of it. I'm afraid I kind of let the house get to "red alert level", and although I've gotten it a bit back more under control, Nick says that there are still going to be consequences.

Anyway, I think that's all that's been happening around here. Hope you guys are well!

Grabbing a minute…

Ok, I’m making myself sit down and post. I’ve been meaning to get an update out here for a couple of weeks, but life has been CA-RAZY!

Everything seems to be going well with the baby. I did have a scare a couple of weeks ago. Thursday before last (the 16th) my mom was at our house helping Morgan go through her room and pare down on some clothes and toys (my job, I know, but I’m working on Daisy’s room so we can hopefully squeeze a toddler bed in there too by the time the baby comes). Anyway, I went to the bathroom and had just a huge gush of bright red blood (sorry if that’s TMI, but for the time being this is more of a pregnancy blog, so don’t be surprised to see more of such down the road).

I hadn’t yet had an ultrasound, so I didn’t know how far along I was, but I knew I was less than 2 months, and bright red heavy bleeding in early pregnancy is always alarming. I called my doctor’s office and let them know what was happening, and they told me to go ahead and come in for an ultrasound. I told them that my insurance was still in the process of being approved, but they said not to worry about it and to just get there ASAP. Fortunately everything turned out to be just fine. I got to see the heartbeat, and they gave me a due date of February 9, 2012. Yay!

My insurance got approved about a week and a half ago, and I got to have my official first visit today (er, yesterday). Everything still seems to be fine, but I’ll find out for sure tomorrow (today?) how my progesterone level is doing.

The day after the bleeding scare Nick and I got to have a date night of sorts (better do it now while there’s still just two to find sitters for lol). Robert and Faith had gotten us a Red Lobster gift card for Christmas, and Nick’s sister Kate had given him a movie gift card for his birthday in April 2010 (shows you how often we get a chance to go out!). Anyway, we had a lovely dinner at Red Lobster, but unfortunately the movie we had planned to see was sold out when we got there, and there wasn’t another one we could fit into our allotted baby-sitting time. It was still a lovely night, and this way we can enjoy the movie as a separate date. My in-laws kept the kids for this one, so my mom said she’d be happy to keep them while we go to the movie one night.

Speaking of keeping the kids – I’m a little concerned about Daisy having to be away from me overnight a couple of nights when I go to the hospital to have the baby. I’m probably being overprotective – after all, Morgan will most likely be with her, and she/they will be with either my parents or my in-laws. But Morgan didn’t spend the night away from us until she was four, and even then she got really homesick for us. Daisy will just be 2 (gaaahhhh – is she really almost 2!?!?!?), and she’s used to sleeping in a crib, although we hope to change that before the new arrival.

I’m actually thinking about letting Morgan be in the delivery room this time. The hospital is pretty open about who you have in there, so I think it would be okay with them. She wanted to be in there when Daisy was born, but I felt she was too young then. I guess I’ll wait to see how the pregnancy goes. Daisy was an amazingly easy delivery, and they tend to get easier with each one, but we’ll definitely have to do some praying about it.

What else? Father’s Day was a week ago Sunday. I got my dad a book about the history of our town, which he LOVED. That made me really happy, because he’s really hard to buy for. I got Nick a pair of shoes he wanted. For Nick’s dad we got a book about roadside attractions across America – really cheesy stuff, but exactly the sort of thing he and his wife are into, so it was a big hit too. And for Nick’s papaw we got a book like my dad’s only it was about the town where their lake cabin is, also a winner.

And speaking of the lake cabin, Sunday was mine and Nick’s 13th anniversary, so we spent the weekend there with the kids. It was a short trip, but a lot of fun, and both girls had a blast in the lake.
Geez this is a long post! Well, I’m off to bed – night all!

Miscellanea

Hi, everyone. I hope all the dads out there had a great Father's Day. We went out to eat at one of Nick's favorite restaurants for it today, which is a rare treat for us these days. Then we went to visit his grandparents and his dad and stepmom, then my parents. Daisy learned to wave yesterday and she was stealing hearts all around. :)

I got my weekly spanking last night. Nick pulled out a couple of implements he had really barely tried before. They were both from Cane-iac. The first he'd never really used because I've always been afraid of whippy implements. The second had seen little use because it was one of Cane-iac's old thinner paddles, and we have several of their thicker paddles he started using and kept going back to.

The whippy implement is a black delrin 5 strand cane and is still available from Cane-iac. The second is a stinger oak paddle. This one is a 1/4 inch thick and is no longer sold, but they do have a 1/2 inch thick version. Anyway, this spanking was not exactly a full blown punishment, but it was definitely more than maintenance. Some of our friends came over last night while Nick was at his buddy's house, and they were still there when he got back. I had been running errands and didn't have much time between the time I got home and the time our friends showed up, but I spent what time I had straightening up. Unfortunately the house started at such a point that I really didn't have time to get it to what he considers acceptable for company. It wasn't terribly messy, but I needed to sweep and load the dishwasher, and the kitchen table was kind of cluttered. One thing that he has asked of me since I started staying home was to make sure that the common areas stay pretty close to finished. He also had a few things to say about some of the things left in my car, an ongoing pet peeve of his.

Once I had the girls in bed he had me follow him upstairs and lay on the bed on my stomach. He lectured me a bit about the things he was upset about, then gave me the spanking. He let me keep my jeans on, but both implements were definitely still felt. He started out with the paddle, then moved to the cane, giving me 50 licks with each. I managed to stay still for the whole thing, something I was rather proud of. Then he told me to take off my pants and panties. I found that rather alarming, but I obeyed, and it turned out that his intentions were more pleasant than another spanking. That was a huge relief, because I don't think I would have done as well staying put with my pants down, especially with the delrin cane. That thing is small but mean! Anyway, the rest of the evening was wonderful, and I so needed him to call me on the things I was slacking on.

 

In other news, Nick's sister Kate, niece Kit, and  nephew Maddox will be flying in from Texas tomorrow, and her husband Will will join them Friday. They're coming in for Nick's first cousin's wedding this Saturday, and it will be wonderful to see them! Anyway, I'm off to bed. 'Night all!

Happy Father's Day!

To all the wonderful father's out there, and most especially to the father who got up in the middle of the night to clean the bedroom carpet, the bathroom floor, and the toilet, and do a load of laundry while I took care of our sick seven year old last night - you humble me with your dedication.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

This is a bit late, but yesterday was pretty packed. I want to say a big Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful men out there who spend every day doing what needs to be done, who work hard at a job that may suck, and pick up odd jobs along the way to make ends meet, who crawl in after a long hard day and still make time for tea parties and Dr Seuss. My sweetheart is one of the hardest working men I know, but he always has time to be a great dad (and a great husband!), and I'm fortunate enough to be able to say that I married a man just like Daddy. My own father held close the same principles of God and family, and I was a very loved little girl indeed. Happy Father's Day and thank you.