A Recommendation

David Platt (author of Radical and pastor of the Church at Brook Hills) gave the most dynamic, inspiring sermon on global missions I have ever heard.
I don't care what your position/take is on missions (though the Bible makes it very clear what it should be), if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you will find this sermon igniting. I highly recommend it - more so than others I have discussed on here.
Watch it when the kids take a nap, with your husbands after the kids go to bed (there I go making assumptions on who reads my blog - ha), or find it in podcast form and listen to it while you work out or drive, but LISTEN TO IT...you will be blessed by God speaking through this man.

This word from Revelations will refresh your soul and remind you how simple our life task was designed to be.
How the "purpose of life" is really just not that complicated.
How we should be chasing after one thing, not all these other meaningless desires of the flesh we think will make our lives richer, yet turn out to be complete let-downs...
How that ONE THING is to bring glory to God by furthering His Kingdom.

I was convicted, yet again, on how I spend my money...where I place my "treasures" (that really aren't my treasures at all)...how much I hang on to, yet how much of it could be used to further the Kingdom. Along these lines, Jason and I saw Rick Warren on the Pierce Morgan show the other night talking about how him and his wife do finances. He said ever since they got married, they have increased their tithing every single year. They started out at 10%, and some years could only increase .25% or so, but now, deep into their marriage, they are tithing 90-ish% of their income to the church. NINETY-SOMETHING PERCENT.
Lord, increase my faith.
(you should youtube his interview, as well - it was great).

Anyway, I know I've been MIA from this blog for a while, but in our Bible study this morning, I was inspired and refreshed with this sermon! I hope you can be too.
Jesus Christ...He reigns in power, love, and mercy. And He has defeated death and invites us into His eternal family to be a part of His spectacular work.

Birthday Boy

Tucker would have been 2 years old today....this picture with his pretty mama has always been one of my favorite from his birthday last year. Lincoln said Tucker's probably celebrating in Heaven with a "Toy Story" party...I imagine it to be far greater than that. ;)

 "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."    1 Corinthians 2:9

Happy Birthday, Tucker!!

4 Years/ 6 Months

Lincoln and Adelynn had their wellchecks yesterday: 4 years & 6mo. respectively.
I was a tad bit nervous because I wanted Lincoln to finish up his shots (until he turns 10 at least) and had NO CLUE how that would go. The only foreknowledge I had was that, if it's anything like when we perform a lobotomy cut his toenails, then that entire office was in for a real treat.

So how did I handle it?

I took Jason with me. :) And it worked like a charm. The boys always feel super secure with him and I really believe that it went so great because Jason was there. Grateful. Lincoln took the shots like a champ and only teared up after the second one. When he was done, the first thing he wanted to do was call Brandon Cole and tell him he was "big now and ready to go hunting".
Oh dear.
And then off to McDonald's for his treat.

As far as his stats go, he is still a big boy. He's in the lower 90's (%) for height and upper 80's for weight. They even took his blood pressure which made him look really big. Crazy.

Noah was perhaps the sweetest ever. Totally unprompted, after the doc checked Lincoln out, he went to Lincoln, gave him a huge hug and said, verbatim: "I'm SO proud of you brother!! Good job brother!!!" And then he told the doctor, "I am so proud of my brother!"

Love their relationship.

As for Adelynn, her day did not go so hot. She had an ear infection, got 4 shots, a flu shot, and I forgot to bring her comfort pacy. Then she ran fever most of the day and just wanted me (no one else) to hold her - that part I didn't mind.
(this picture taken BEFORE it all went down that morning, of course!)

She is in the 75% all around (except her McMahan/Carmack head, of course). And off the charts in cuteness. Love this little thing.

3 Things

1. Black Friday:
My birthday is this Sunday, with Christmas right around the corner, and since I am my old normal size again, shopping sounds fabulous. Some might say shopping is necessary since my current wardrobe is still 50% of clothes I wore in college (and no joke - some even from high school). Since I've basically been pregnant the past 4 years, shopping just hasn't sounded all that exciting.
So this year I was pumped and ready to stand in lines at midnight!
2 items on the agenda:
1. A new phone from Best Buy that was going to uber cheap that day only
2. Clothes

So 10:00pm rolls around and in between yawns I start texting Meredith and Bethany to see if they want to go (because at this point all I wanna do is sleep and I need some motivation). And as I'm talking to them via texts, I was playing around on the Internet and realized the same awesome deals were happening online at that very moment.
What??

Long story short, I ordered brand new Galaxies from Sprint for Jason and myself for $18 (I was expecting to pay $50 at Best Buy...and wait in an infinity line), and bought some clothes for super cheap/free shipping! The only hang up was sprint had me on hold for 30 minutes - while I watched "X Factor" in my recliner and chatted with the family. :)

Best Black Friday shopping ever.

And then the next morning, I slept in, and hit the malls with Jason's family around 9:00am, and we shopped for the next 10 hours, never having to wait in lines for dressing rooms or checkout! I guess all the peoples were worn out from standing in the midnight lines???

Regardless, Black Friday was glorious!

I also must add I purchased something I swore years ago I never would on 2 fronts:
                                            1. Skinny Jeans
                                            2. And white ones, at that.
These post-pregnancy hormones have fully taken over.

2. Post Pregnancy
        Speaking of which, I know I'm 6 months out, but this is around the time after Noah I started having (what I think now, looking back) was hyperthyroid issues. It resolved with Noah after he turned One on its own, and I bet it does the same this time, but seriously - a woman's hormones are something else.
       And I think I talked about that crazy rib pain I had been having for months? Finally figured that one out too this morning at the Chiro: I have a rib that keeps popping out of place and has damaged some of the connective cartilage around it. She found it 2 months ago, popped it back in, and it didn't bother me at all until a few weeks ago. Went back today and sure enough it was out of place again. Glad to know the answer finally!!

3. Tiger Basketball
          The first real game is tonight!!!! Can't wait!!!!

TV Days

So I've told you about my awesome "Friends" story from my Los Angeles-living-days, and I shared my "Bachelor" story of how I was super-duper close to mega-embarrassing myself on that ridiculous show, but have I ever mentioned I actually did make it on the silver screen once as a game-show contestant??

I actually forgot about this until yesterday when I ran across the network's "39 Year Anniversary" news page:
click here and scroll down

And yes, if you noticed the network, it's the most awesome TBN. Hilarious. It was a game show called "Virtual Memory" and yes, indeed - it was a Bible Trivia gameshow. My roommate's brother was the host which is how we were on it. My roommates and I went up against our guy friends. Seriously, though, this was probably one of most hysterical experiences while living in LA and I forgot about it until I ran across our picture yesterday and about died thinking of those memories.

I then searched for a youtube video with no luck (cause I'm not even sure youtube was much around then??). But a few years ago, at my grandmother's house before I got married, I was flipping through the channels and our episode was on! Crazy.

Anyway, the funny thing is, when I googled this show, the first few pictures representing it are of us, and the other was of our guy friends. Now if I could only get my hands on that video!! Ha.

(BTW - we lost royally. Apparently one of our guy friends was a Bible Scholar)

Lessons From a 4-year-old

Last night I decorated for Christmas. I love the season, I love the weather, I love the spirit, but let's keep one thing clear: I hate decorating for it all.
Don't get me wrong, I passionately love the finished product and the luminous glow of all the lights throughout my living room, but the decorating part always seems to leave me in a grumpy, irritated mood. Yes indeed.
And not to mention my decorating process began with the attic floor falling beneath my feat as I was getting decorations down. Yes, an entire side of our attic floor bottomed-out while I (thankfully) was sanding on a beam, balancing as it crashed. That will put you in the Christmas spirit real fast.

Nonetheless, 4 shattered Christmas balls later, I'm done. And since I had a headache 1/2 way through the process (I love hormones), my kitchen is really done half-heartedly.

We recently got rid of the bookshelves in our room to make way for my grandmother's hutch, and thus I don't even have space now to house the Christmas goodies I had last year. So a lot of things remained in their wrappers and are headed back to the attic (the one with the current huge whole though the floor).

One of the things that didn't make the cut this year was the nativity scene. It's too big, doesn't really match the other decor (it's actually just not even pretty). Maybe next year.

But when my intuitive 15 4 year-old son woke up, the first thing he commented on was:
"Where's baby Jesus mom?! Mom, where are we going to put baby Jesus???" implying I obviously wasn't finished decorating yet.

And yall, I kid you not, I found myself saying these exact words to him this morning:
"We just don't have room for Baby Jesus this year, Lincoln. Sorry!"

There's no room for Jesus...we're all filled up.

Hmm...those words suddenly sounded super familiar. And I was convicted as I looked at my concerned 4-year-old.

And guess what? We busted out that nativity scene, swapped it's "not-so-pretty" with one of my more modern pieces, and baby Jesus now sits in glory on the hutch in the foyer.

My personal reminder this season to make room for Jesus.

Thanksgiving: Part 1

Today we did our first Thanksgiving celebration! Our friends from India have been cooking for us the past few months, so we turned the tables on them and cooked them a Thanksgiving meal...which translated meant we overloaded them with casseroles. But that's how we do it in the South, right? :)

It was insane how much food we had between everyone (b/c they still brought some of their yummy authentic dishes as well!).
It was fantastic company and conversation as usual. I have just grown to love these women that live just down the street. Truly blessed. We shared how at Thanksgiving a typical tradition is for everyone to talk about what they are thankful for. We didn't have the capacity to really do this formally because there were so many people there this time (and tons of noisy kids!), but I am grateful Jesus has brought about these relationships with these women! I cherish getting to know their culture, their hearts, and their children.
This beautiful lady hosted the whole crew today!

And some more pictures...

Love these memories!